Brighton & Hove Albion welcome Southampton to the AMEX Stadium in a mid-table Premier League encounter.
Victory would see Brighton climb to ninth in the table, whereas Southampton can leapfrog their hosts with a win and go into 11th position.
Team News
Leandro Trossard and Steven Alzate could return for Brighton after recovering from illness.
Shane Duffy (thigh), Yves Bissouma (suspension) and Jakub Moder (knee) are ruled out.
Southampton have no fresh injury concerns after Thursday’s defeat at Burnley but Alex McCarthy (thigh) remains a doubt.
Stat Attack
- Brighton have claimed just five points from their last six meetings against Southampton (W1, D2, L3)
- Southampton are unbeaten in four previous Premier League visits to Brighton (W3, D1).
- Both teams have scored in their last four meetings, in which Brighton and Southampton both netted five goals apiece.
- Lewis Dunk has won more aerial battles than any other Brighton player this season, having won 66 aerial battles in 24 league appearances.
- No Premier League player has scored from more free-kicks this season than Southampton’s James Ward-Prowse, who has netted from three free-kicks in 31 league appearances.
Prediction
Having recently enjoyed excellent wins over Arsenal and Tottenham, Brighton certainly went to Manchester City in midweek with confidence which showed in the first-half, although defensive errors proved their downfall after half-time in a game which they weren’t likely to win anyway.
This clash is therefore a nice chance for Graham Potter’s Seagulls to mentally reset themselves if they can continue to play with the same level of adventurous attacking football, which we saw against Arsenal and Spurs but avoid the defensive mistakes of midweek.
Southampton meanwhile were simply outplayed at Burnley on Thursday evening across the pitch except in goal, where Fraser Forster did a cracking job to frustrate the Clarets and forced the hosts to be patient yet crucially clinical in how they stuck the ball beyond his reach.
Both teams however are involved in an almighty scrap for ninth so this should hopefully be a decent match despite only a best finish of ninth place at end of season really riding on this game, yet I expect both teams to fight hard and try to get something out of this.
Prediction: Brighton 1-1 Southampton
Result: Brighton 2-2 Southampton
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