Football News: Southampton vs Crystal Palace - 1 September 2018

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Game four sees Southampton take on Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. They won their opening game against a handy looking Fulham side, lost to Liverpool at home in a very tight affair and were unlucky in their most recent loss to Watford last weekend when Watford should've been down to 10 men early in the game and one of their goals was a fluke.

Obviously, Palace's star man is Wilf Zaha and we will need to keep him quiet if we are to keep Palace in check. That said, they have potential goal scorers throughout their team who may not be prolific but can chip in if too much attention is place on Zaha. Watford were physical in their man marking of Zaha and did keep him quiet for the most part until they relaxed their efforts late on in the game. However, an early foul on him should've seen a red card for Watford and as it was missed, I wouldn't be surprised if Palace put the message out to the referee to pay close attention to how we deal with him on Saturday.

Palace line up in a 4-3-3 formation and so MH will need to focus on winning the midfield battle if we are to get a foothold in the game. Playing a 4-4-2 will likely see our midfield overrun once more so I hope lessons have been learned from the last two league performances. Under Hodgson, Palace have proved more than resilient at home and continue to accrue points despite Benteke being their main striker whilst he has at rock bottom levels of confidence and goal returns. The threat will come from the wider positions with Townsend and Zaha asking questions of our full backs and quite likely pinning them back to defensive positions for most of the afternoon.

The result of the game will depend on MH. On our day, with our best players in form and playing in the correct positions, we are a headache for any team and capable of beating Crystal Palace. But if we play to their strengths and our own weaknesses as we have in our last two league games, then it will be an uphill battle to get something from the game. On form alone, and given that they're the home team, I expect Palace to come on strong and our defence will have to improve dramatically if it is to survive the afternoon. At the other end, our attack continues to prove blunt with players used ineffectively in a formation that doesn't suit the personnel picked in the starting 11.

Written by figodasilva August 31 2018 13:36:08