Franca scores in first PL game for 13 months to earn Palace point at Southampton

Matheus Franca scored his first goal in English football to earn a point for Crystal Palace from a 1-1 draw with bottom-of-the-table Southampton.

The 21-year-old – who had not played a Premier League game since March 2024 due to injury – was introduced with just under 15 minutes to play at St Mary’s and headed in a Jefferson Lerma cross to score the decisive equaliser after 92 minutes.

Until that point, Paul Onuachu’s first-half header had looked to have secured a first league win since November 2 for Saints, who remain 19 points from safety with just eight games left to play this season.

It was not all bad for Ivan Juric’s side, however, as they avoided becoming only the third team in top flight history to lose 10 home games in succession.

Southampton are seemingly resigned to their fate; Juric has said it himself. “We will go down, but [we want to go down] with more fight, more dignity and more everything,” he said after the 2-1 defeat to Wolves before the March international break.

As a result, he employed a gung-ho approach from the off at St Mary’s – but it almost backfired immediately. Some slack defending allowed Jean-Philippe Mateta the freedom of the south coast to pick his spot from 20 yards and crash a shot back off the underside of the crossbar, with Aaron Ramsdale beaten.

The hosts did not go back into their shells, however, and took a surprise lead 20 minutes in, when Flynn Downes and Mateus Fernandes linked up brilliantly, before the latter delivered a cross that Onuachu powered into the bottom corner.

He later spurned two decent chances to extend the lead, but not before Mateta drew a sharp low save from Ramsdale after a sumptuous control and exquisite shot on the turn.

Oliver Glasner made three changes just before the hour, but Ben Chiwell, Daichi Kamada and Eddie Nketiah did not spark his side into action. For long periods, they looked a shadow of the side that beat Fulham at the weekend to book a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals.

By the 90th minute, the prospect of surpassing Derby’s record was within touching distance for Saints, but, perhaps naively, they still wanted to add another, just to make sure. It was symptomatic of their miserable season to date that they would concede again.

And that’s exactly what happened, as Taylor Harwood-Bellis’ headed clearance returned the ball to Lerma, who picked out Franca to head home and break Southampton hearts all over again.

Story of the match in stats…

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