Southampton’s survival battle ended at Tottenham after a 3-1 defeat consigned them to relegation from the Premier League in record-breaking fashion.
Saints’ fate had felt inevitable for months, but a 2-1 victory for Wolves at bottom-three club Ipswich on Saturday opened up a 22-point gap to safety for the south coast club.
It meant Ivan Juric’s team required a draw or win in north London to mathematically stay up for at least another week but a first-half brace from Brennan Johnson set the visitors on course for an immediate return to the Sky Bet Championship.
Mateus Fernandes grabbed a late consolation before Mathys Tel struck a stoppage-time penalty for Spurs as relegation with seven fixtures left gives Southampton a new Premier League record – while Derby and Huddersfield, in 2008 and 2019 respectively, had their fate sealed in March, both had only six matches to go.
Three points for Tottenham lifts some of the gloom around Ange Postecoglou’s side ahead of Thursday’s Europa League quarter-final first leg at home to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Postecoglou dealt with fresh scrutiny after Thursday’s defeat at Chelsea, but this time faced a manager with survival at stake.
It took only 60 seconds for the Tottenham fans to make their feelings clear with calls for chairman Daniel Levy to leave after a protest against him and owners ENIC had been organised pre-match.
Spurs started strongly, though, with early penalty appeals by Dominic Solanke waved away before Johnson had a shot blocked and Aaron Ramsdale then produced a flying save from Cristian Romero’s header.
Southampton responded to almost take a shock lead in the 12th minute when Tyler Dibling chipped in for Kamaldeen Sulemana, but his volley was deflected onto the post by Pedro Porro and Spurs survived.
A minute later and the deadlock was broken with Johnson scoring for the first time at home in 2025.
It was a sweeping move as James Maddison found Son Heung-min and he waited for the overlap from Djed Spence, who cut back for Johnson to rifle home.
Ramsdale denied Romero again soon after following a diving header by the Argentina defender before Spurs thought they had a second after 33 minutes, only for a lengthy VAR review to follow.
#TOTSOU – 33’ VAR OVERTURN
VAR checked the referee’s call of goal – and established that Romero was in an offside position in the build-up and recommended that the goal was disallowed. pic.twitter.com/86Dkt2qGzq
— Premier League Match Centre (@PLMatchCentre) April 6, 2025
Bergvall prodded in after another Romero header but Graham Scott at Stockley Park took nearly five minutes to decide Romero had been offside, which prompted Postecoglou – days after he bemoaned technology “killing” the game – to joke on the touchline with a coin-flip gesture.
When play resumed amid boos from both sets of fans, Tottenham did make it 2-0 with three minutes of the first half left when a Maddison header after a Rodrigo Bentancur cross set up Johnson to poke in for his 16th of the season.
Son had a shot blocked at the start of the second half, but it was largely played at a pedestrian pace.
Ramsdale produced a fine save to stop Solanke’s low effort before he was penalised for handball outside the area, but Saints did begin to push as the seconds ticked away.
Vicario denied Sulemana before Southampton at least gave their loyal fans something to shout about when Fernandes evaded Spence to fire home on the stroke of full-time.
It gave the away faithful brief hope, but Tottenham had the final say as Johnson was fouled by Welington inside the penalty area but watched his hat-trick hopes disappear as Romero, now with the captain’s armband, gave the ball to Tel, who fired home his first Premier League goal.
Full-time followed but the Southampton players were applauded by their supporters as attention for them turns to next season.
