Premier League: Match preview Southampton v Norwich City

A look ahead to this weekend’s fixture at St. Mary’s

Chris Hughton looks on from the touchline (GETTY IMAGES)

Norwich City, managed by Chris Hughton, need points on the board fast with only nine games of the season left, and their last four fixtures against the current top three sides in the division.

Meanwhile, Mauricio Pochettino is the main man on the South Coast, with talk of a place in Europe being touted for Southampton. However, performances and results have dipped of late, and a respectable top half finish is becoming reality for the Saints. England’s newest clutch of players in 18 year old, Luke Shaw and captain Adam Lallana have been in sensational form, while Rickie Lambert and Jay Rodriguez have been scoring for fun.

With one win in five games for Norwich resulting in a hard fought end to the season, Southampton’s attractive a fluent football will surely cause Michael Turner and Sebastien Bassong all sorts of problems to an out of sought relegation burdened side. The 1-0 win at Carrow Road for the Canaries earlier in the season should give Norwich some sort of encouragement.

KICK-OFF: 3pm

Past Three Meetings

Norwich City 1 (Redmond) Southampton 0 , 31st August 2013

Norwich City 0 Southampton 0, 9th March 2013

Southampton 1 (Lambert) Norwich City 1 (Snodgrass), 28th November

STATS

Southampton have won just one of their last eight Premier League home matches (W1 D3 L4).

Norwich City have lost eight of their last 11 Premier League away games (W1 D2 L8) including the last four in a row.

Norwich have lost all 10 Premier League away games in which they’ve trailed in this season.

Southampton have been level at half-time in their last three matches against Norwich

Southampton and Norwich are the two sides to have let the most points slip from winning positions this season (15 each).

Five of the last seven meetings in all competitions between Southampton and Norwich have ended as a draw (one win each).

ODDS

Southampton win: 1.53

Norwich City win: 6.00

Draw: 4.00

TV: Watch highlights on Match of the Day, 10.30pm, BBC 1