Match Day Thread Liverpool vs Southampton 07/05/2017 KO 1:30PM

Hello all and welcome back to another match day thread by Saintsfcfan. First of all apologies last week, I take full responsibility for the poor display against Hull. Credit to Hull they played very well but blue line under it now and off we go once more.

Saints go into their final five games of the season in poor form over the last 3 games, having only scored twice and obtaining a solitary point. Whilst relegation is unlikely, with Swansea having to win all their remaining fixtures and overturning a 25 goal swing to overtake us, Saints will be looking to finish the season solidly after a week of supposed discontent on the training ground and Van Dijk signing for every team that's ever existed.

We here at Not606 are able to stay positive, whilst others elsewhere (mentioning no Facebook-dwellers or Twitter users) will get themselves into a right ol' negative tiff. Anyway enough of that. Liverpool.

The game on Sunday will be Saints 4th game against Liverpool this season, and currently remain unbeaten against them, as well as not conceding. Saints of course were the victors over two-legs back in January as they reached the EFL Cup final, with Shane Long scoring a last minute winner that recorded the largest earthquake in Southampton for many years. Liverpool are not in bad form themselves but look to have lost key players Coutinho and Mane to injury, arguably removing their biggest threats. Saints on the other hand should have a relatively full squad to choose from, With Austin very close to a return.

My team:
Forster
Cedric Stephens Yoshida Bertrand
Romeu Davis
JWP Tadic Redmond
Gabbiadini

Prediction:
Hopes aren't particularly high for this game given how we have played recently. If we play like we did at the weekend we will get beat. Play like we did against Chelsea and keep it tighter at the back and we may get something. With that said I'm going for a 1-1 draw.

COYR!!

P.s for any moaners for read this - get behind Puel. You may not like him but keep your moaning to yourself on a match day. Support the bloke.

 

Agree with that team. And if Boufal comes on he comes on for Dusan NOT JWP or Redmond. Unless Dusan is on fire
Redmonds defending v Hull was excellent. Like that's why we play him

 

I don't remember the game against Hull despite apparently being there, but we were on early on MOTD, so it must have been good.

I'd like to see us being more expansive as Liverpool will give us more room, but, on the other hand, we don't want to give them more room. Play it tight and take our chances is my recommendation. Gabby can't play up front on his own....unless we are going to ping the long ball to him. A boring 0-0 would be ok in the circumstances, but can see this going 1-0 either way....so am plumping for a brilliant display with a goal from anyone in the red and white (though hoping for Gabby).

 

To be fair, Boufal was playing at RB for a few moments while Cedric was off the pitch, and defended very well I thought.

 

Sunday 7 May
1.30pm Liverpool v Southampton (Sky Sports)
Referee: Bobby Madley
Assistants: A Nunn, P Kirkup
Fourth official: A Taylor

 

Bagged a free corporate ticket from work for this. Going into it with low expectation of a result. Although i did that last time here and that worked out alright!

 

Ahhhhh. Not Madley. I was hoping we'd not see him again this year.

 

And Jonathan Moss for the Arsenal game. There really are some crap referees this year, or should I say the old ones are getting worse!

 

Here's just the facts...we do tend to beat Liverpool more often than some of the bigger sides we face.

LIVERPOOL (AWAY)
First competitive game against Liverpool - 1902 FA Cup 2nd Round (home) won 4-1

First league meeting: 1960-61 League Division Two - (H) won 4-1 (A) won 1-0

First top-flight league meeting: 1966-67 Division One - (H) lost 1-2 (A) lost 1-2

Biggest defeat 1998-99 Premier League (away) lost 1-7

Biggest win 4-1 three times all at home, 1902, 1960-61, 1989-90

Last league double - Saints 2003-04 Premier League (H) 2-0, (A) 2-1, Liverpool 2014-15 Premier League (H) 0-2, (A) 1-2

League totals: Saints won 24, Liverpool won 39, draws 20 - Goals-Saints 95 Liverpool 124

Cup totals: Saints won 6, Liverpool won 10, draws 3 - Goals-Saints 13 Liverpool 28

 

Any news on Courtinho and his dead leg? Hopefully it will keep him out this weekend, he is a very good player.

 

He trained today.

 

Point to the OP. Our run of poor form has involved a draw, then defeats against two of the biggest and best teams in the league.

 

Aaah but the weekend result has wiped out all memory of anything good which may have happened this season. We are now doomed forever.







(perhaps this should be blue)

 

Point taken, but I still don't think many fans will go into this game with great confidence.

 

don't be fooled by the early kick off.
your car is not safe. make sure its locked good and proper

 

Video of training (with punch ups edited out).

 

We're 2-0 up on aggregate, over three games, this season.
Can we keep them out a fourth time? Or would that be considered Puel setting us up to be boringly defensive?

 

I will (because I'm largely optimistic about pretty much everything).

Vin

 

1-1.

 

Everyone keeps talking about our poor form, however if you say we have lost four of our last ten games (all against top five sides) and scored 1.7 goals per game it doesn't sound half as bad does it. I guess you can use figures as you want to show the data.