West Ham United look to escape the relegation zone as they welcome Southampton to the London Stadium.
With Aston Villa not playing this weekend, West Ham need at least one point to move out of the relegation zone.
Southampton meanwhile can climb above Everton into 11th with victory as the Toffees don’t play until Sunday.
Team news
Embed from Getty ImagesTomas Soucek is ruled out for West Ham with a hip injury picked up during their 3-2 defeat at Liverpool.
Ryan Fredericks (shoulder), Jack Wilshire (groin) and Andriy Yarmolenko (thigh) remain sidelined with no definite return dates.
Southampton will welcome Kyle Walker-Peters back into contention after the fullback missed their win over Aston Villa with a calf injury.
Nathan Redmond remains sidelined with a hamstring injury.
Form
West Ham enter this match without a win in their last seven league games (D2, L5), of which both points came in home draws against Everton and Brighton respectively.
Southampton head to East London off the back of two wins in their last five league matches (W2, L3), although the Saints have scored at least twice in four of their last five away trips with exception of a 4-0 loss at Liverpool.
Stat Attack
- West Ham have lost just one of their last five meetings against Southampton (W4, L1).
- Southampton have conceded three goals in each of their last two trips to West Ham.
- Three of West Ham’s last four goals against Southampton have come from strikers (Marko Arnautovic x2, Sebastian Haller x1)
- Excluding current top ten teams, Southampton’s Danny Ings is the top goal scorer with 15 goals in 27 appearances, which only bettered by Leicester’s Jamie Vardy and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with 17 league goals overall.
- No West Ham player has hit the woodwork more than once this season.
Prediction
West Ham really need to start finding wins here because they just seem in a permanent slump of sloppy performances, although they did show signs of promise at Anfield but threw away at least a point if not win.
Southampton meanwhile seem quite inconsistent in results at present but their away form is a positive improvement, especially when going forward so this should be a closely fought game.
I am going for a Southampton win despite their recent poor form in this fixture because West Ham are too unpredictable, which will suit Southampton nicely if they’re clinical and play the long game in frustrating the opposition to force mistakes.
Prediction: West Ham 1-2 Southampton
Result: West Ham 3-1 Southampton
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