Southampton welcome Leicester City to St Mary’s Stadium in the fight for Premier League survival.
Victory could see Southampton move off the foot of the table if Bournemouth lose elsewhere in a mid-afternoon kick-off, whilst Leicester can go 12th with a win if Crystal Palace lose at Aston Villa.
Team News
Mohamed Salisu and Che Adams (pictured) could return for Southampton after recovering from knocks, as the Saints look to bounce back from their shock FA Cup exit against Grimsby in midweek.
Valentino Livramento (muscle) and Juan Larios (adductor) remain absent.
Leicester could welcome James Maddison back into contention after he missed their last two matches due to illness.
Youri Tielemans (ankle), Jonny Evans (calf), James Justin (Achilles) and Ryan Bertrand (knee) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Southampton host Leicester in a 5:30pm GMT kick-off on Saturday 4 March, live on Sky Sports in UK.
Stat Attack
- Southampton have won just one of their last five league meetings against Leicester (W1, D2, L2).
- Leicester are unbeaten in their last five visits to Southampton (W3, D2).
- Southampton are looking to do the league double over Leicester for the first time in the Premier League era.
- Southampton have scored in seven of their last nine league matches at home, except for 1-0 defeats to Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa in January.
- No Leicester player has hit the woodwork on more occasions this season in the league than Youri Tielemans (3).
Prediction
Having suffered back-to-back defeats in the last week including a lacklustre yet dominant loss to League Two’s Grimsby in midweek, Southampton now simply need to knuckle down properly and find their goalscoring spark if they want to fight their way to safety.
What is worrying though is that several players in the starting line-up against Grimsby lacked much passion amidst their dominance and made sloppy defensive errors, which deservedly were punished but they now must bounce back and refocus quickly if want to stay up.
Leicester though have their own defensive issues which Blackburn exploited to maximum effect with some dynamic high-intensity attacking football, of which the Foxes simply failed to manage defensively but their attack should be boosted by Maddison’s return here.
A goalless draw therefore surely looks unlikely but unless Southampton can score first and sort out their defensive sloppiness, Leicester should have the edge here.
Prediction: Southampton 1-2 Leicester
Result: Southampton 1-0 Leicester