A rare Saturday 3pm game in Sunderland's early season sees the Black Cats make the long journey to the south coast to visit St Mary's Stadium. This is one of three grounds which holds the record defeat for Sunderland. David Moyes has stated that he wants to break the August league hoodoo which has clouded Sunderland since 2010. (I'd take a draw) Sunderland come into the game off the back of a victory in a poor cup game against Shrewsbury. Southampton, meanwhile, come off the back of a decent performance in the defensive 2 thirds of the pitch but little attacking intent against Man Utd, ultimately meaning defeat. League Form guide Southampton - W-W-W-W-D-L Sunderland - D-W-W-D-L-L Match appointments: Referee: Lee Mason Assistants: A Holmes, D Bryan Fourth official: P Tierney Injuries (From physio room) Southampton - Pied and Gardos are both set to miss the match with injury. While Ryan Bertrand and Oriel Romeu look set to return. Sunderland - It's probably easier to list the fit players rather than the injured ones for Sunderland with 9 players showing as injured on Physio room. Lens, Kone, Borini (who I saw driving away from the stadium on Wednesday in a beautiful Ferrari!) and Jones () are all expected to return on Saturday. Mannone has been ruled out until December with his elbow injury and Cattermole, Kirchhoff, O'Shea and Larsson are still ruled out. Key Men: Southapton James Ward-Prowse The young midfielder boasted impressive passing stats over recent seasons and has been a major part of plans in the management/player merry go round which is often seen at Southampton. Fortunately for them, their merry go round is due to success rather than failure!! Sunderland Jermaine Defoe Going with the lazy, easy one. He had very few touches of the ball against Man City but managed to score with one and produce a very good save with the other. He's a fantastic player and someone Southampton will have to keep quiet as he doesn;t need a second invitation to score. Selected Odds: (oddsche=cker) Southampton (W) 8/13 Sunderland (W) 11/2 Draw - 29/10 (William Hill) Southampton 2-0 6/1 Sunderland 2-1 18/1 Southampton 8-0 500/1 My tip - don't bet - bookies are normally a lot richer than me!!
I'm looking forward to seeing how Manquillo does, another tough debut we're dishing out. Do people reckon Khazri will start or is he still too much of a chubster?
There's no way we can afford someone who can't run with players like Redmond on the pitch. Khazri delivers a great dead ball but doesn't look capable of working hard enough IMO. Hopefully Borini will be fit. He'd play instead of Watmore for me
Same result as last year for me, we're good enough for a point at Southampton. My easiest match to go to but I have an early Christening to attend on Sunday ............ not mine, Jesus already chose me for a sunbeam
Tidy but ineffective against ManU and could not break down a Watford defence without a bit of luck. At least a point coming our way.
Not feeling too confident about tomorrow tbh. Barring the obvious game we've got a **** record against you lot at St Marys. 1-1 for me, some one and Defoe. Also who decided that Ward Prowse was our key man ? I doubt he'll even start!! The team we'll most likely play will be... Forster Cedric Fonte Van Dijk Bertrand (or Targett if he's not fit yet) Romeu Hojgberg Davis Tadic Redmond Long. In a 4-4-2 diamond with Romeu at the base and Tadic at the tip. Long & Redmond up top. Thinking about it actually, I've got a really bad feeling about this one... can see Moyes doing a job on us proper
That teams looks a bit lightweight, to me. No height or presence. I have a feeling Moyes will pull off a result here, and I'm tipping us to get all 3 points tomorrow.
Wouldn't suprise me in the slightest mate. VVD has a fair amount of height and presence to be fair but we are missing a lot now with Victor gone (and Pelle for set pieces). I see this being one of those games where an early goal is cruicial to us. If we get one I'll be fairly confident of winning. If it's 0-0 (or worse) at ht then I see you taking all the points back up north. On another note is Kone still injured/sulking? Big plus for us if so...
He's in contention for the game, mate. He'll probably start, I would imagine. Yeah VVD is quality, I was desperate for him to come to Sunderland but most on here disagreed with me. You could see at Celtic he was a footballer and a half. It's the midfield and forwards, I was referring to. Just looks a bit lightweight and I hope we get in amongst you right from the start. This is normally a game I would have us down for a point at the most. It's just a feeling I've got that we'll take the points, though.
I realise this will go down like a lead balloon but I don't buy into this Khazri is overweight stuff. All you need to do is a google image search and you can see he's always been a solid looking lad- there's one of him in a Bordeaux away kit where he looks just as big as he does now. I reckon its just the way the stripes are arranged on the new kit making him look fatter. Either way, we need his quality on the pitch.
Quality is fine. Delivery is great. Workrate on Wednesday was awful. Fine against a lower league side but will be punished against a side like these. Borini of found it me. He has workrate and quality
Lack of work rate is probably down to him being off the pace, like Moyes said. In which case he's going to need to game time so I'd suggest he needs to play some part against Southampton, whether that's starting with the sure knowledge he'll come off or half an hour an at the end. Either way, we need to be bringing a player of his quality back into the side at the first chance
^^this^^ he played a key role in our survival last season. Big Dave must integrate him back into the starting 11 because we are badly missing his flair and creativity, not to mention his set play ability which is far superior to Adnan Januzaj!
