It’s lovely to be able to write two previews in one. I was tempted to write two very different previews, and then delete whichever was wrong, but that seemed like a lot of effort.
So, Southampton is in a slightly strange position of being better than their talent suggests, but also not as good as the league table says.
The two teams have been about on par throughout the season:
They certainly started the season better, but have hit a slightly tricky run of form:
Obviously, losing 9-0 is never going to help the recent form, but we should note that despite taking only 3 points from their last six games, we could reasonably expect them to have taken more than that - a little bit of luck and they could easily have won the games against Aston Villa and Newcastle.
They will have a few concerns with how their chance creation has fallen somewhat, although it has picked up in recent weeks. It goes without saying that Danny Ings is their primary threat, but is registering just 0.28 non-penalty expected goals (NPxG) per 90 minutes this season. But, for the second successive season, he is outscoring his expected goals - a good finisher or an extended run of form? Southampton might be slightly worried because his 0.28 NPxG per 90 is his lowest since signing for the Saints and is way down at 38th best in the league in the season. Whether Ings is an exceptional finisher or not, the lack of chances created has to be a concern. James Ward-Prowse, is second on the goalscoring list, scoring four freekicks. He is obviously superb from anything to the left-hand side of the penalty area, and we’ll have to be very careful not to concede sloppy fouls there.
Saying that, throughout the season, they are maybe just edging us for attacking threat:
Defensively though, we are the better team:
Even accounting for *that* result against Man United, they are going slightly in the wrong direction defensively.
This isn’t helped by Alex McCarthy having the second-worst shot-stopping record in the league. (But, the keeper with the worst record is likely to be at the opposite end in at least one upcoming match.)
If we consider what we are at home for the first match, we should be favourites:
For the return game, at St Mary’s, I would still make us favourites, but a lot closer: