On Thursday evening, Southampton travel to the King Power Stadium to face ex-manager Claude Puel’s Leicester City in the first of five remaining crucial league games. A win against the Foxes is vital if Saints are to push towards maintaining their Premier League status.
Leicester are currently sat comfortably in eighth, however a loss last time out at Turf Moor at the hands of Burnley suggests that it will be the highest position in which they could finish come mid-May and the season’s finale.
Puel’s side come into this contest in mixed form, having lost their last two games to the scoreline 2-1 against Newcastle and Burnley. However, before these losses, the Foxes had picked up eight points from four games after being thrashed 5-1 at the hands of now-confirmed Premier League champions Manchester City.
The fact that the fixture is at the King Power may come to Saints’ advantage as Leicester haven’t won at home in the league since beating Watford 2-0 in January and Southampton haven’t won at home since November!
After being completely embarrassed by Puel’s side in the reverse fixture back in December where Southampton were smashed 4-1 at St. Mary’s where it was 3-0 at half-time, it would be nice to get a result against our former manager, however unlucky some may say he was to have been sacked back in June.
However, the relations between Leicester’s manager and us have to be put to one side as what is the main aim is to win the game, not to get back at the Frenchman but to put ourselves closer to safety.
Saturday’s results couldn’t have gone much worse for us and so we find ourselves five points off of safety going into this game, with winnable fixtures coming up against Bournemouth, Everton and Swansea afterwards with an FA cup semi-final to look forward to as well!
Next: Saints 2-3 Chelsea: Match recap
Why Leicester will win:
Despite being rather inconsistent with form, Leicester are still a good side who need the points to make that eighth spot theirs with teams below sitting too close for their liking. Jamie Vardy has had a brilliant season with 17 league goals so far this term as well as want-away Riyad Mahrez who, despite making it clear after the close of the January transfer window that he was furious with not being allowed to go to Manchester City, has chipped in with ten goals and eight assists in the league.
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It would make sense for them to go for this as they’ll see it as a good opportunity to get a result as we are incredibly out of form, however they do still need the points to achieve their own targets and will feel as if it was about time to win at home in the league.
Why Southampton will win:
Now it’s do or die for Saints. A loss, maybe even a draw could allow the gap between us and other teams to get even bigger and time is seriously running out. The capitulation against Chelsea was beyond a joke, however two positive performances against two top-six sides should be praised and would be more if we weren’t in such desperate need of results.
As a fan I’ve seen that the players care and want to fight for the club, especially with the performances against Arsenal and Chelsea respectively but it’s now all about results and this is one of four winnable games that we HAVE to go for!
With Charlie Austin back fit and Shane Long performing well again, we may have a decent strike force that could end the season well and cause some damage to Leicester on Thursday evening!
Predicted line-ups:
Leicester
Goalkeeper: Kasper Schmeichel
Defence: Danny Simpson, Wes Morgan, Harry Maguire, Ben Chilwell
Midfield: Riyad Mahrez, Adrien Silva, Fousenni Diabate, Kelechi Iheanacho
Striker: Shinji Okazaki, Jamie Vardy
Southampton
Goalkeeper: Fraser Forster
Defence: Ryan Bertrand, Jan Bednarek, Welsey Hoedt, Maya Yoshida, Cedric
Midfield: Oriol Romeu, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Dusan Tadic,
Striker: Charlie Austin, Shane Long
Prediction:
Scoreline: Leicester 1-2 Southampton