Southampton vs Chelsea Preview: Team News & Prediction
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Southampton are struggling, as was predicted, but they have kept themselves in a lot of games with Saints guilty of a lot of easy mistakes. They welcome high flying potentially title challenging Chelsea down to St Mary’s.
Kick-off date/time: Wednesday 4th December, 2024: UK – 7:30pm / US ET – 2:30pm / US PT – 11:30am
How to watch on TV: UK – Not televised / US – Not televised
How to watch online: UK – Amazon Prime / US – Peacock
Southampton Preview: Saints need a miracle
Russell Martin’s extreme possession-based style of football, which saw mixed results underpinned by remarkable and extreme passing stats in charge of Milton Keynes Dons and Swansea City, has undermined any Southampton success this season with mistakes in abundance seeing Saints continually drop points in otherwise fairly even matches.
They come into this one on the back of a 1-1 draw with south coast rivals Brighton and Hove Albion at the AMEX Stadium at the weekend with Flynn Downes scoring a second-half equaliser before a Cameron Archer goal late on was controversially chalked off by VAR. They sit rock-bottom with one win after 13 matches so far this season.
Chelsea Preview: Blues are flying
Enzo Maresca took charge of what remains a fairly bizarrely run Chelsea with an unusual recruitment policy but the Italian, who won the Championship title with Leicester City last season, has moved the Blues into a genuine title challenge this season and they continued their good form with an impressive defeat of Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge the other day.
Nicolas Jackson opened the scoring early on for Chelsea in that game before Enzo Fernandez made it successive matches marked by a goal with Cole Palmer making it 3-0 late in the second-half to finish the game with a wonderful strike. They have lost just four of their 21 matches across all competitions so far this season.
Southampton Team News: The goalkeeper issue
Alex McCarthy was dropped to the bench at the weekend after mistakes against Liverpool with Joe Lumley starting against Brighton due to Aaron Ramsdale’s injury woes.
As well as the absence of Ramsdale, Saints are without Ireland goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu with key men such as Jan Bednarek, Will Smallbone and Adam Lallana all sidelined, too. They are also decimated by suspensions as Harwood-Bellis, Downes and Dibling received their fifth bookings and will miss out here.
Predicted XI (5-4-1): Lumley; Sugawara, Bree, Walker-Peters, Stephens, Manning; Fraser, Fernandes, Aribo, Armstrong; Archer
Unavailable: Ramsdale (Injured), Bazunu (Injured), Smallbone (Injured), Lallana (Injured), Dibling (Suspended), Stewart (Injured), Ugochukwu (Ineligible), Harwood-Bellis (Suspended), Downes (Suspended)
Questionable: Onuachu (Injured), Bednarek (Injured)
Chelsea Team News: Fresh Blues
Eight of Chelsea’s eleven from the weekend didn’t feature in their 2-0 win over Heidenheim in the UEFA Europa Conference League last week, highlighting the depth in their squad.
That has allowed Maresca to keep a fairly consistent eleven throughout his time at the Blues with the biggest issue being no timeframe on the return of captain Reece James.
Predicted XI (4-2-3-1): Sanchez; Gusto, Badiashile, Colwill, Cucurella; Caicedo, Fernandez; Madueke, Palmer, Neto; Jackson
Unavailable: Kellyman (Injured)
Questionable: Gusto (Injured), James (Injured), Fofana (Injured)
Southampton vs Chelsea Prediction
Southampton haven’t been as high-scoring, at both ends of the pitch, as many would have expected before the season began, which would suggest a hint of pragmatism from Martin but they have remained loose at the back and the lower scoring rate is more to do with coincidence and circumstance. They now take on a Chelsea side that are rampant with an abundance of attacking options so, even if they are slightly off it or rotate, should win this one quite comfortably.
Southampton vs Chelsea Tip: Chelsea to win -1 handicap
