Saints have the chance to bag themselves a small piece of history at Manchester City on Saturday – but will have to overcome their recent Etihad Stadium hoodoo to achieve it.

City go into the game against Ronald Koeman’s side on the back of a shock 4-1 loss at home to Liverpool in their last Premier League outing.

Incredibly, City have not lost two league games in a row at home in seven years.

Saints have the chance to make that happen, but will have to have a drastic upturn in fortunes compared to their recent efforts at the Etihad.

Saints have been beaten on all of their last five trips to City, four times in the league and another in the FA Cup.

You have to go back to 2004 to find the last – and only – time Saints have won since the opening of the Etihad, that a 3-1 win thanks to a goal from James Beattie and a brace from Kevin Phillips.

Such has been the excellence of Saints on the road over the past few years, the only other grounds that now hold even remotely close to similar problems are White Hart Lane and Goodison Park, with four defeats in a row on the road to both Tottenham and Everton.

Though the stats are perhaps against them, this could be the perfect time for Saints to end their City losing streak.

It was back in November and December 2008 that City last lost back-to-back home league matches.

That started with a 1-0 defeat to Manchester United and was followed by a loss to Everton by the same margin.

City’s surprise hammering by Liverpool was only the second time that they had conceded four goals in a competitive game at the Etihad – the other occasion being against Aston Villa in 2012.

However, City manager Manuel Pellegrini is confident the match was a one-off and that it won’t be repeated for the Saints visit.

He said: "I think that we finished with the game - that very bad game that we played on Saturday - on Sunday morning.

"It was a strange and fake game that we played, and that is the past. It is more important to think about the future. I hope we will return to our normal performance."