Southampton v West Ham
Date: 19/08/17
KO: 15.00pm
Southampton will be welcoming West Ham to St Mary’s stadium on Saturday as they look for their first win of the season after a frustrating 0-0 draw to Swansea City on the opening weekend.
They will be playing a West Ham side that were battered 4-0 on the opening day by an impressive Manchester United, leaving them bottom of the table. They too will be looking for their first win and to bounce back from that embarrassing defeat at Old Trafford.
Southampton could welcome record £20 million signing Marco Lemina from Juventus into their starting XI to add some much needed steel to a seemingly lacklustre Saints midfield.
Contrastingly, West Ham are set to complete their record £40 million deal for William Carvalho from Sporting Lisbon. He will not be a part of the game, though will give Bilic a new dimension of quality in the centre of the park for the coming season.
Southampton will be without Virgil Van Dijk due to transfer speculation around him, although they will be welcoming back left back Ryan Bertrand and goalkeeper Alex McCarthy, who have both returned to first team training and are available for selection, after shaking off knocks.
However West Ham will be welcoming back last seasons top scorer Michail Antonio to the match day squad although he will only be able to make the bench: he will be able add some much needed power to the West Ham attack that looked blunt at times last time out.
Although Kouyate, Lanzini will still be absent from the midfield, Andy Carroll is again not fit for the trip down to the coast, although they have returned to first team training for the Hammers and should be ready for next weekend.
Both teams are expected to name mostly unchanged starting XI’s from last week except West ham’s Sead Haksabanovic could come in for Edmilson Fernandes after impressing in training.
After West Ham’s wake up call against United one would expect them to bounce back and get the win against Mauricio Pellegrino’s men. Just as they did last year in their 3-1 win at St Mary’s last season.
Prediction: Southampton 1 West Ham 2
Written by Henry Tomlinson.
