please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Hello and welcome to the official match thread for Saturday’s Barclays Premier League encounter between Southampton & Liverpool. The game is scheduled to take place at St Mary’s on Saturday 16th of March 2013 with a kick-off time of 3PM. English T.V won’t be showing the game but streams showing the game are posted on this thread before & during the game. Preview. As the season starts to reach its conclusion, Southampton host Liverpool with both sides still having something to play for. Southampton are still in a relegation battle but with Mauricio Pochettino’s side currently four points clear of Wigan Athletic in 18th place, a positive result on Saturday along with results going their way would go a long way to securing Southampton’s Premier League future. Liverpool, on the other hand, are looking up and Brendan Rodgers side currently sit 6th in the Premier League. With a good run of recent results, Liverpool will be looking to continue this run of good form with a positive result at St. Mary’s. Both sides were in Premier League action and both sides were able to avoid defeat. Let’s start with Southampton and their weekend fixture was a trip to Norfolk to take on Norwich City. Both sides hadn’t been in the best of form going into the game with Norwich having one just one game in their last ten and Southampton not faring too better with two wins from their last ten games. With that in mind, a point wouldn’t have been a bad result for both managers and that’s exactly what they got. The only 0-0 from the weekend’s Premier League fixtures but there still were talking points from the game. Late in the game, Norwich were awarded a penalty after the Southampton left-back, Luke Shaw, was adjudged to have fouled Grant Holt. It was a big call and certainly looked very soft indeed. You wouldn’t expect a player such as Grant Holt to go down as easily as he did but that, unfortunately, is the nature of football in 2013. Southampton would have felt that justice was served in this case as the penalty was saved well by Artur Boruc in the Southampton goal. It gave both sides a point which moved them further away from the bottom three and could prove to be a vital point come the 19th of May… Liverpool were also in action as they took on Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield. Both sides went into the game on the back of some good recent form with Liverpool having won their last three games and scoring 12 goals in the process whilst Spurs were unbeaten in twelve Premier League games. The game was billed as the ‘Suarez Vs. Bale’ show and both players did have a significant impact on the game but it certainly wasn’t all about them. Liverpool took the lead through Suarez as a lovely move between Philippe Coutinho, Jose Enrique & Luis Suarez resulted in Suarez poking the ball past Hugo Lloris and giving Liverpool the lead. However, Spurs fought back and Gareth Bale was involved. First of all, he crossed in from the right-hand side to Jan Vertonghen to head the ball home and draw the match level at 1-1. Those two combined once again as a Bale cross wasn’t properly cleared and Vertonghen was on hand to smash the ball home and give Spurs the lead. At this point, many would have expected Spurs to close the game out and secure another three points to boost their Champions League pursuit. However, Spurs shot themselves in the foot not once, but twice to throw the game away. Firstly, Kyle Walker played a very poor ball across his defensive line towards Lloris but it wasn’t accurate enough and Stewart Downing was on hand to nick the ball, round Lloris and squeeze the ball past Vertonghen on the line to make the score 2-2. Then, Jermain Defoe somehow decided to poke the ball back towards his goal for no reason whatsoever and Suarez was on hand to nip in. He was clearly fouled by Benoit Assou-Ekotto in the box and Steven Gerrard sent Lloris the wrong and secured the comeback, and the three points, for Liverpool. Since these two sides met in December, (A 1-0 victory for Liverpool) there has been one major change for one of those sides. Southampton changed their manager as Nigel Adkins was sacked and the Southampton chairman, Nicola Cortese, brought in the ex-Espanyol manager Mauricio Pochettino. The change was met by dismay and shock throughout the wider footballing community with many believing that because Adkins had brought Southampton up from League One to the Premier League in two seasons, he deserved more time in the Premier League. This belief could have been further backed up by looking at the table when Adkins was sacked. Southampton were 15th in the table, three points clear of the relegation zone and had better goal difference than all of the sides below them. They had also been on a five-game unbeaten run… Southampton do have form with surprising managerial depatures. The current Newcastle manager, Alan Pardew, was sacked by Cortese three games into the League One season and after a 4-0 win over Bristol Rovers! Cortese brought in Nigel Adkins from S****horpe and that was inspired as Saints marched into the Premier League before Adkins was replaced by Pochettino. Will the latest managerial change prove to be as inspired as the Pardew/Adkins one? Time is definitely needed before answering that question. Onto the teams & tactics now and as the home team, we’ll start with Southampton. In recent games, Southampton have adopted the 4-2-3-1 formation and the four attacking players that Pochettino plays will be vital if Southampton are to get a positive result. Southampton are most likely to play with Scouser & Liverpool fan Rickie Lambert in the lone striker role with Jason Puncheon, Adam Lallana, Jay Rodriguez & Gaston Ramirez fighting it out for the three positions behind Lambert. One player that I would point out as being key from the three behind Lambert is Gaston Ramirez. The attacking midfielder has been consistently inconsistent this season but certainly possesses the ability to unlock the Liverpool defence and create chances for himself and the Southampton team. Onto Liverpool now and it is unlikely that we’ll see too many changes from Brendan Rodgers. Pepe Reina is expected to recover from a calf injury to replace Brad Jones in the Liverpool goal. Apart from that, I would suspect it will be the same team that beat Tottenham Hotspur. If the team is the same, you can ben pretty sure that Luis Suarez will be a key player for this Liverpool team. If Daniel Sturridge starts, you can expect Suarez to be given some sort of ‘Free role’ in behind Sturridge. This type of position and tactic would allow Suarez to create opportunities for himself and his teammates and with his undoubted quality, it would seem likely that Mauricio Pochettino will try to negate the threat of Suarez by putting a Southampton onto him. This could be Jack Cork as he is a more defensive minded midfielder and has played in the two infront of the Southampton defence for a large chunk of the season. So, an important game in prospect! Can Southampton & Mauricio Pochettino secure a three points which would take them closer to Premier League safety? Or will Liverpool extend their winning run to 5 games in all competitions and push higher up the table? You’ll find out the answers to these questions, and more, on the official match thread on the Not606 Liverpool board. Do join in. (That includes the guests that read this thread. Sign up and get involved!) Injury News. Southampton. There are no injuries currently recorded and Mauricio Pochettino therefore has a fully fit squad to choose from. Liverpool. Pepe Reina: Calf Injury.* Martin Kelly: ACL Knee Injury. Fabio Borini: Shoulder Injury. *Indicates the player will have a late fitness test and could be available for Saturday's game. Suspension News. Southampton. No suspensions currently recorded. Liverpool. No suspensions currently recorded. Southampton 3 - 1 Liverpool Goalscorers: Southampton... Morgan Schneiderlin: 5th minute. Southampton... Rickie Lambert: 32nd minute. Liverpool... Philippe Coutinho: 45th minute. Southampton... Jay Rodriguez: 79th minute. Southampton: Boruc - Clyne Yoshida Fonte Shaw - Schneiderlin Cork - Guly Davis Rodriguez - Lambert SUBS: K. Davis Hooiveld Forren RamÃrez Ward-Prowse Lallana Puncheon - Southampton Substitution: Jos Hooiveld comes off to be replaced by Jose Fonte (31st minute) Southampton Substitution: Gaston RamÃrez comes off to be replaced by Steven Davis. (54th minute) Southampton Substitution: Adam Lallana comes off to be replaced by Guly Do Prado. (83rd minute.) - Liverpool: Jones - Johnson Skrtel Agger Enrique - Lucas Gerrard - Downing Henderson Coutinho - Suarez SUBS: Gulacsi Wisdom Allen Shelvey Suso Ibe Sturridge - Liverpool Substitution: Joe Allen comes off to be replaced by Lucas Leiva. (45th minute) Liverpool Substitution: Daniel Sturridge comes off to be replaced by Jordan Henderson. (82nd minute) - YNWA.
Ask and you shall receive. - The poll does now close at 12.58PM on Saturday so get your votes in early!
Chris is getting in early after the hurt by missing out on the Spurs thread. Great read as always... I'm sure.
Chris is getting in early after the hurt by missing out on the Spurs thread. Great read as always... I'm sure. Whisper: I may have just copied what Zingy put but its what I was going to say...
After a series of good games, we normally come crashing back down. Not a loss, but a draw on the way...
Should be a bit warmer by Saturday but with a few showers pitch is looking good. Going to be a tight game....hopefully for us a bit tighter than some. Should be a good match and will be one or lost on stupid mistakes. Unless that is we have a stupid referee....on that note you have no need to worry about homers......we haven't had one for about three years....... Have a safe journey guys although hopefully for us a disappointing one!.......
should be a cracking atmosphere. saints will certainly need to be at their very best if their gonna have any chance of winning this
This could be tricky with Saints scrapping and with a decent home record against us. Think we will win though. Say 3-1.
Can't see us getting anything out of this one. Watched your mob vs. spurs and thought you looked very good. The thought of Suarez against our back line scares the hell out of me. I do think it will be a good game, both teams like to get the ball down and play. You will have enough quality to beat us by a couple of goals, I predict 1-3. With that being said, we are due a lucky result as the last few games we have played well but not got anything out of them. Here's hoping it comes on Sat!
Saints fan here. I really have no idea how this will turn out. Get the feeling you will probably win, don't think it will be a great match, probably with wasted opportunities by both teams? I think our defending will prove to be worse though. I'd like to see Mauricio pick a team that stands a chance! No Fox or Hoiveld please, and with Ramirez sacrificed so we can play Lallana/Davis/Puncheon as the second string forward three.
We desperately need a win but can't see us taking points off you. I'm going for 1-2, liverpool take lead via suarez lambert to equalise in 2nd half then we roll over but manage to keep the goals conceded down. Although this is saints, anything could happen.
Lots od people thinking we will win and this scares the **** out of me. Just waiting or a mediocre performance. Really hope we can carry on the good run though. With Allen injured I hope that Suso gets a place on the bench and an opportunity to play as a CAM for half an hour in the second half. Keep it going lads!
Wish we were six above Wigan...actually four, with Wigan having a game in hand. Will be hard for Saints to get a result, but we have previous (with a win over City and draws against Everton, Arsenal and Chelsea). We play attacking football without getting enough goals considering the chances we set up. We play a high line which can be a weakness (hence Man City managing to score a goal after being on their back foot all the match). Am going to this game, so hope it's warmer or at least so exciting I don't notice. P.s. we absolutely outplayed Everton in Mauricio's first game in charge, but couldn't get the goal that we deserved, so sorry about that, guys.
