Southampton vs Manchester City: Can Sky Blues condemn Saints to fourth straight defeat?
Date: Saturday 7th December
Venue: St Mary’s Stadium
KO: 3PM
The Saints are in desperate need of a win after a surprise loss at home to Aston Villa consigned them to a third straight defeat, but Manuel Pelligrini will hope to lead his side to a fourth consecutive league win as they look to climb the table and mount a title challenge.
Southampton vs Man City
Team News:
Southampton
The Saints are without a number of players which has left the squad depleted. Artur Boruc is out for around six weeks with a broken hand sustained against Chelsea. Kelvin Davis is also out with no return date set so the club are down to their third choice keeper, Paulo Gazzaniga.
Midfield linchpin Morgan Schneiderlin will also miss out along with Guly do Prado while Gaston Ramirez should have recovered from illness in time.
Manchester City
Vincent Kompany came through the win over West Brom unscathed after missing the last 10 games and will be ok for Saturday’s game however his defensive partner Matija Nastasi? will be out for a couple more weeks yet.
David Silva and Stefan Jovetic are both set to recover from calf injuries in time for the match.
Recent Form
Mauricio Pochettino has seen his team lose their last three matches however two of those were away to title challengers, Arsenal and Chelsea. However in those three games they have conceded eight goals as their defence, so good at the start of the season, showed signs of slipping slightly.
It is worth noting however that they have only lost one home game so far this season, Wednesday’s defeat to Aston Villa.
City are on a good run of three straight wins and four wins in their last five with their last defeat coming away to Sunderland.
In the last three games they have scored 12 goals and have looked scary in front of goal with Alvaro Negredo, Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko all netting.
Player to Watch:
Southampton – Rickie Lambert
Lambert has not quite reached last season’s form yet but is doing OK. He has scored four in 14 games, almost one goal every three matches, though 55% of his shots have hit the target. With a bit more luck he would have had a few more goals.
He has also made 18 key passes this season and these have resulted in four assists. Only James Ward-Prowse and Adam Lallana have made more key passes.
Manchester City – Alvaro Negredo
Aguero might be taking the plaudits, but the Spanish international is certainly contributing massively to both this strike partnership and the Manchester City attack.
Negredo has netted six time with 54% of his shots hitting the target while he has also made two assists and completed 78% of passes.
Prediction:
It looks set to be a tricky afternoon for the Saints, who are in a bad run of form and suffering a number of injuries to key players while City are currently rampant.
Southampton could well struggle here and be on the end of their fourth straight defeat.
Southampton 1-3 Manchester City