Southampton are locked in an intense battle for promotion at the top of the Championship and former Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman has issued his prediction.
Southampton looked down and out in the race to finish in the Championship’s top two after sinking to defeats against Millwall and Hull City.
But after beating Birmingham City and Sunderland while watching Ipswich Town lose to Cardiff City, the Saints are back in the hunt and can move to within three points of second place Leeds United if they win their game in hand.
The pace being set at the top of the second tier has been relentless and in any normal campaign, Russell Martin’s men would be sat firmly in the league’s top two.
Unfortunately, even setting a record for going 22 matches unbeaten isn’t enough to worm their way into the automatic promotion places.
With Martin’s men hitting a run of form, it’s difficult to say which two teams will go up automatically, however, former Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman has offered his verdict.
David Seaman makes Southampton promotion prediction
Seaman is widely regarded as one of the greatest-ever goalkeepers in Arsenal’s history, while his affiliation with Leeds – after coming through the academy as a youngster – is well known.
The former shot-stopper now regularly offers his opinion on the ‘Seaman Says’ podcast, and on this occasion, he’s offered his verdict on who will win promotion back to the Premier League.
When asked who he thinks will go up, he responded: “Do you know what? I think the three that went down.”
He was then posed with the question of whether he thinks the Saints will go up automatically and although he thinks Leeds will win the league, he has given them a chance of finishing above Leicester.
“No, I’m not going to say you’re going to pip Leeds am I?,” Seaman said. “You might pip Leicester because we’re going to win the league, that would be nice to see that, but if they go into that play-off though, that’s lottery time.”
The Saints promotion fate will be decided by three huge fixtures
In their last 10 matches, Southampton have to play each of Ipswich, Leicester and Leeds, coming up against the Whites on the final day of the campaign.
If promotion still isn’t resolved by the final match, the Saints will have a final-day shootout to decide whether they go up.
At the moment, though, it’s a seemingly impossible task to predict the division’s top two and that is likely to be the case for the remainder of the campaign.