Middlesbrough seek to end their festive rut as they face Southampton in a Championship clash at the Riverside Stadium.
Victory would return Middlesbrough to second if Ipswich fail to win at Portsmouth, whilst Southampton can climb as high as 11th with a win if results elsewhere swing in their favour.
Team News
Adilson Malanda could be in line for his Middlesbrough debut following his return from a loan move to Charlotte FC, after he remained with his former club once he completed his transfer last summer.
Kim Hellberg otherwise could be without Callum Brittain after he suffered an ankle injury during their 1-0 defeat at Derby on New Year’s Day.
Lukas Engel (fitness) is a doubt after his return to training, having spent time on loan in America with Real Salt Lake.
Dael Fry (calf), George Edmundson (unspecified), Alfie Jones (ankle), Riley McGree (hamstring), David Strelec (knock) and Darragh Lenihan (Achilles) remain ruled out.
Southampton have no fresh injury concerns to report after their goalless draw against Millwall.
Mads Roerslev (knee), Shea Charles, Ross Stewart and Samuel Edozie (all hamstring) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Middlesbrough host Southampton at Riverside Stadium on Sunday 4 January at 3pm GMT, untelevised live in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Middlesbrough have won just one of their last five meetings against Southampton (W1, D2, L2).
- Southampton have won two of their last six visits to Middlesbrough (W2, D1, L3).
- Middlesbrough are chasing consecutive wins at home to Southampton for the first time since March – September 1999.
- Middlesbrough player
- Southampton have claimed just one point in their last four away matches (D1, L3).
Prediction
With their wasteful finishing and defensive injuries piling up, Boro really need to find a way to keep it tight and avoid conceding as they ideally need to be scraping points together if want to stay close to Ipswich in the automatic promotion race.
Southampton meanwhile are in their own rut with no win in five games but at least they’ve managed to score in four of those five matches and kept one clean sheet, but they crucially have less injuries and dominated Millwall in their goalless draw which will give them some confidence coming to Teesside.
Boro though haven’t exactly been the consistently kindest to Southampton but with Boro’s defence pretty much decimated and Malanda an unknown at this level if he starts, I can see the Saints nicking this if can get the hosts’ defensive lines cracked open and under pressure.
Prediction: Middlesbrough 0-1 Southampton