After a narrow 2-1 defeat at Manchester City on Wednesday night in injury time, I fully expect the Saints to be fired up for this match on Sunday. Raheem Sterling’s 96th minute winner broke Saints’ hearts after performing incredibly well on the night.
I expect Saints to revert back to a similar system that saw them beat Everton 4-1. However, due to the return of Oriol Romeu, instead of playing the 4-2-3-1 with James Ward-Prowse out wide, we may choose to go with the 4-3-3 with Romeu sitting deep for cover on the counter attack.
He would sit just behind Lemina and Hojbjerg (sorry Davis), their roles being to win the ball back and play forward with it whenever possible. Personally, I would prefer the formation that we played against Everton.
I fully expect Yoshida to be dropped as we readjust to a back four. Don’t worry, with Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham coming up, we haven’t seen the end of the back five.
I expect to see Austin, Tadic and Boufal making up the front three. Fraser Forster will start in goal, hoping to build on his excellent performance against Manchester City.
In their 2-1 defeat against Burnley on Wednesday, Bournemouth played a 4-4-1-1 formation, with former Chelsea players Begovic and Ake starting with the recently returned Callum Wilson up front. Arter partnered former Saint, Surman in midfield and I expect this to be the case again on Sunday. Eddie Howe will make a late call on the fitness of Junior Stanislas, who hasn’t featured since injuring himself against Chelsea a month ago.
Southampton’s 4-1 victory against Everton was the first time that they had scored four goals in a match since their 4-3 victory at Vicarage Road against Watford at the beginning of March.
Charlie Austin will be key to whether Saints prevail from this match with a victory. The goalscorer, twice, against Everton had an instant positive effect on Saints. He acted like Graziano Pelle did in Ronald Koeman’s final season when we finished 6th, being the target man and holding up the play, allowing the rest of the team more time to advance up the field. This led to more of our players being involved in attacks (hence why we scored four goals) and therefore we need to repeat this tactic to give ourselves the best chance of beating a very resilient Bournemouth side.
The Saints had scored only nine goals in their last 12 Premier League games before the match against Everton, and they will not want to return to those dry days in front of goal. As long as the system remains the same as against Everton then chances will fall to the Saints. However, they will need to take them in a clinical fashion, which is why Austin may be effective.
Bournemouth, on the other hand, had won four out of their last five Premier League games before falling 2-1 to a very impressive and tactically faultless Burnley side. Despite losing their first four league games and having been in the bottom three, Bournemouth brilliantly recovered and have now accumulated 14 points, only two less than Saints.
Bournemouth have built a squad with a lot of pace and talent within it, including the manager, and with that they are very effective on the counter attack. Often with Ibe and Pugh bombing down the wing, they then have Wilson and King creating space and making effective runs into the box. Therefore, Saints will need to be wary of this threat and the full-backs especially will need to be on their toes. Callum Wilson has scored four goals in six matches since his return so he could prove very dangerous. They also have the ever-threatening Jermain Defoe available, along with Benik Afobe.
On Sunday, the match will be tight, with both teams looking very organised of late. I expect goals in this one, however both teams will need to work incredibly hard for them. I expect Bournemouth to try and counter attack with Saints having more of the ball as the Cherries try to trick them into a false sense of security and then suddenly break away.
Therefore, this could make Bournemouth most dangerous from a Southampton set piece, when everyone is pushing up, especially the tall centre-backs. Both teams will get several chances, it’s just a case of whoever takes theirs. There will be several key battles that may ultimately affect the outcome, predominantly through the middle of the pitch.
In conclusion, both sets of players are coming out of 2-1 midweek defeats and therefore both will feel the need to put the record straight here. This game should be interesting.
