{"id":421937,"date":"2026-02-12T15:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421937\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T15:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:03:07","slug":"southampton-fc-has-tonda-eckert-helped-turn-saints-into-genuine-play-off-contenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421937\/","title":{"rendered":"Southampton FC: Has Tonda Eckert helped turn Saints into genuine play-off contenders?"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Southampton undoubtedly possess enough talent on paper to make the top six, there is still a level of concern around some defensive frailties that continue to appear.<\/p>\n

Their 44 goals conceded is the most of any side in the top half while only five teams have fewer clean sheets that their seven this term – although four have been earned in their past eight games which indicates Eckert is starting to address this particular issue.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, Saints conceded a second goal from an error, with Fellows under-hitting a back-pass which was pounced on by Leicester for Patson Daka to score.<\/p>\n

These kind of individual mistakes have been an unfortunate theme of the season and at times it has even cost them points, like in their loss against Hull<\/a> in January when Ryan Manning was at fault. <\/p>\n

In the Championship this season, Saints rank second overall for unforced errors leading to a goal (nine) and are joint worst in the division for errors leading to shots (23).<\/p>\n

Set-pieces have also been a consistent strength and a troubling weakness. <\/p>\n

Attacking-wise, only Coventry (21) and Millwall (15) have scored more than their 14 but in defending corners and free-kicks, only Sheffield Wednesday (17) and Oxford (16) – the two lowest-ranked teams in the division – have conceded more than their 14.<\/p>\n

Losing top scorer Adam Armstrong to Wolves<\/a> in January was a blow for Saints, someone who at the time was their top scorer and appears to thrive at this level. <\/p>\n

That regrettable decision may have been mitigated to an extent by the returning Ross Stewart who has looked assured since his return from injury. <\/p>\n

But as his Southampton career has shown so far, they have not been able to rely on him because the amount of injuries he has had. <\/p>\n

Since signing two-and-a-half years ago from Sunderland, Stewart has made just 35 appearances, scoring five goals – four of which came this season. <\/p>\n

He offers plenty as a starting option when healthy, good at holding up the ball, is mobile and can be a threat in and around the box.<\/p>\n

Eckert will be hoping the centre-forward can see out the rests of the campaign with a clean bill of health.<\/p>\n

Cyle Larin has had quite the start to his Saints career, scoring just seconds into his debut over the weekend while Cameron Archer has struggled to make an impact this season.<\/p>\n

If Saints are to make the top six then they must stamp out some old habits and have their best players available to them for the rest of the campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Southampton undoubtedly possess enough talent on paper to make the top six, there is still a level…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-421937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}