Middlesbrough welcome Southampton to the Riverside Stadium this Saturday in an important weekend of Championship football. Both sides are in a rocky period, so a haul of three points would be extremely important for their campaign.
The Boro currently sit rock bottom of the Championship after seven games. With zero wins, two draws and five losses, Middlesbrough have just two points to their name.
In their last five games in all competitions, Middlesbrough have one win, one draw and three losses. Emmanuel Lath and Marcus Forss were on the scoresheet for The Boro against West Brom but Cedric Kipre, John Swift, Brandon Thomas-Asante and Jeremy Sarmiento all scored to give West Brom the 4 - 2 win with Tommy Smith also sent off for Middlesbrough. The one win for The Boro came against Bolton in the Second round of the League Cup. Matt Crooks, Riley McGree and Morgan Rogers all scored in the 3 - 1 win over Bolton.
Andre Dozzell and Jack Colback both scored in the 2 - 0 win for QPR against Middlesbrough, despite The Boro having nine shots on target. In the visit against Blackburn Rovers, Matt Crooks scored for The Boro, but it wasn’t enough as Sammie Szmodics bagged a brace in the 2 - 1 win.
The last time out for Middlesbrough was against Sheffield Wednesday. Anthony Musaba opened the scoring for Wednesday but Darragh Lenihan grabbed the equaliser in the second half as the game finished 1 - 1.
Southampton, on the other hand, sit 11th. The first seven games back in the Championship haven’t quite gone to plan with three wins, one draw and three losses, leaving them with ten points, nine points from automatic promotion.
The two wins came back in August. Nathan Tella scored early in the second half, with Plymouth Argyle’s Ryan Hardie equalising within two minutes. However, Che Adams popped up with a goal in the 94th minute for the 2 - 1 win. Southampton also beat QPR 2 - 1 with Samuel Edozie and Adam Armstrong on the scoresheet.
The trip to Sunderland was a shock to the system. Jack Clarke, Bradley Dack and Chris Rigg scored, with Pierre Ekwah grabbing two as Sunderland thrashed Southampton 5 - 0 despite The Saints having 69% of the possession. The visit from Leicester started on the backfoot for Southampton with Jamie Vardy scoring in the first minute. Kasey McAteer doubled the Leicester lead before Edozie could get The Saints on the scoresheet. However, Wilfred Ndidi and Stephy Mavididi both scored to give Leicester the 4 - 1 win with Kamaldeen Sulemana also being sent off for The Saints in the 97th minute.
Most recently, Southampton hosted Ipswich Town. Omari Hutchinson scored the only goal of the game in the first half, giving Ipswich the 1 - 0 win despite Southampton’s 13 shots.
Middlesbrough and Southampton have met 57 times in their histories with the first meeting coming back in 1906. The Saints do have the upper hand in the fixture with 25 wins in comparison to Middlesbrough’s 17 wins, with the remaining 15 meetings ending in a draw.