The Premier League weekend kicks off on Friday night this week with a huge clash towards the bottom of the table as Southampton play host to Norwich City at St Mary’s to get another round of action underway.
Southampton moved into the top half of the table last weekend and will be looking to stay there with a win here. Norwich will be hoping to move to within a couple of points of safety with a victory of their own.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League channels with the build-up show beginning at 7pm and the action kicking off at St Mary’s at 8pm.
Southampton
After a bit of a sticky start to the season where their defensive displays were much better than the outcomes they were receiving, things have balanced themselves out for Southampton now and they are climbing the table as a result. Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side continue to play a nice style to watch where they get after teams and if they could find a little more composure in front of goal they would be a real threat to those above them.
That clearly costs money though so it is understandable why they don’t have that. What they do have though is some decent form having only lost one of their last nine matches. Their home form is very strong this season too which is encouraging and they showed against Everton last week how tough they can be to beat on home soil. Prior to that Saints played three of the big six and came out of that run unbeaten so you sense confidence will be high within the Southampton players.
Norwich City
Norwich City go into this match having lost eight of their last 11 matches, although five of the last six defeats were against big six teams and the other was against West Ham who look like they will finish in the top six this season. I think it is fair to say the schedule has been tough for Dean Smith’s men but when it has softened out they have two wins from three over Watford and Everton as well as a draw with Crystal Palace. They are probably the games Norwich should be judged on.
Burnley’s recent revival means that Norwich City have dropped to the foot of the table once again. They have 17 points from their 25 matches so you would imagine if they are going to give themselves a chance of staying up they will need to double that total over their last 13 games, so matches like this are hugely important. They have to score more goals if that is going to happen. 15 goals in 25 games is not going to get the job done.
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Team News
Southampton will be boosted by the return of Romain Perraud for this match after he has recovered from a positive Covid-19 test. There is still no Nathan Tella or Alex McCarthy for the Saints in this Friday night clash though.
Norwich City could also receive a boost going into this match with Tim Krul potentially available to return between the sticks. Dean Smith will be unable to call on the services of Adam Idah while the match might come too soon for Lukas Rupp.
Betting
I think Southampton will win this match but they are pretty short to do it so I’m going to look towards the goals market for a bet on this one. The 8/11 price on over 2.5 goals isn’t fantastic and ordinarily I probably wouldn’t get involved with it but I’ve had a couple of winners in the Premier League this week so I don’t need to go looking for extreme value so I’m happy to have my wager on some goals in this game.
We have got to that point of the season where Norwich need to be looking for more than a point against sides outside the big six so I expect them to come up with a plan to get at Southampton even if that means taking a risk or two going the other way. Southampton always set up to get after the opposition so it isn’t beyond question that they create at will and score three goals themselves but Norwich might stick an extra attacker on the pitch with the intent of winning this game. Norwich scored at Anfield last week so they can certainly trouble the scorers here. They also won the reverse meeting 2-1 so over 2.5 goals carries plenty of legs for me.
Tips
Back Over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with BetVictor
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