Southampton host Newcastle at St. Mary’s on Saturday as they look to bounce back from their defeat to West Ham at the weekend.
The Saints lost 3-1 to West Ham at the London Stadium and looked second best for the majority of the game, with the Hammers even having chances to extend the scoreline.
Ralph Hasenhuttl should be looking for a reaction from his side, but may need to make some changes to the starting XI in order for that to happen. One change that might improve their chances of getting a result could be at centre-back, after Jan Bednarek’s disappointing display.
Bednarek failed to deal with the threat of Sebastien Haller and Michail Antonio and made too many errors at the back. After the game, Hasenhuttl even went as far as to say Southampton’s defending for the three goals was an “absolute joke”, suggesting that he could be open to rotating at the back.
Jannik Vestergaard came on towards the end of the game and looked solid at centre-back, albeit for a short period of time. Southampton could drop Bednarek and start Vestergaard against Newcastle, in an attempt to improve the back four and cut out the silly mistakes that were being made against West Ham.
Newcastle are also a team built around set-pieces and crossing, which means that Southampton could be needing to deal with constant high balls into the box. Only Bournemouth have scored more from set-pieces (13) than Newcastle (12) this season. Vestergaard stands at 6ft 6, compared to Bednarek’s 6ft 2, which suggests that he could be a better option to deal with balls into the penalty area.
