Southampton vs Fulham – Analysis, Prediction, Team News

Southampton vs Fulham Preview

This preview effectively writes itself. Southampton need three wins from three matches and for an extraordinary sequence of results elsewhere over the next three games to ensure their Premier League survival. To suggests that the odds of this happening aren’t favourable is something of an understatement. If you fancied winning a tenner from Southampton’s impending doom, you’d have to risk five or ten thousand pounds depending on the bookmaker.

Southampton showed plenty of ‘fight’ away to Nottingham Forest and were able to set up a tense finale after Ward-Prowse scored from the spot in the 96th minute, but ultimately they were once again second best. At the risk of us appearing to champion defence-first, reactive football, Southampton were, once again, far too open and progressive in possession for a team that’s facing the spectre of relegation.

At this stage of the season, football is all about results for such teams rather than laying down a blueprint for the future. It’s absolutely no coincidence, nor poor judgement on behalf of relegation threatened clubs, to bring in the likes of Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and Neil Warnock in the Championship who did a terrific job to keep Huddersfield Town up. Southampton have many talented youngsters, and they are trying to play the game in the right way, but they consistently come up short.

Fulham are playing with something of a carefree attitude in the remaining weeks of the season. In some ways, this is liberating – they found themselves 5-1 up against Leicester as they eviscerated a back line which has been tormented all season long. This was without the considerable presence of Aleksandar Mitrovic by the way, and they were also without influential attacking midfielder Andreas Pereira.

On the other hand, Leicester scored three times in the second half, missed a penalty and were clearly the better team for the last half hour or so. Therefore, this carefree attitude is liberating but also not conducive to keeping clean sheets. With Fulham’s mid-table finish effectively nailed on and the prospect of European football highly unlikely, we expect to see more of the same here.