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A Che Adams screamer was enough for the Saints to see off promoted Watford last weekend, a result which means they’re now unbeaten in four matches over 90 minutes across all competitions.
In fact, despite their low league position, they’ve actually proven extremely difficult to beat this season, losing just twice in their 12 matches since an opening day defeat away at Goodison Park.
Despite an impressive season last term, and a strong transfer window despite losing captain and star man Jack Grealish, Dean Smith seems under pressure at Villa.
While a sluggish start to the season was put down to a lack of time for their new look squad to jell, 10 games in and they look to be coming unstuck even more with four successive league defeats coming into this, conceding 12 times in that run as defensive stability seems to be their biggest issue at the moment.
While Villa won this outing last year, it’s the Saints that have had the better of this matchup in recent years, with that the Villains only victory over Southampton in their last 10 meetings, with the south coast side taking each of the previous four, scoring 13 times in the process.
That would lead us to believe that Villa are likely to, once again, ship a few goals, though the hosts’ output this season leaves us questioning that bet.
Indeed, only Norwich have netted fewer in the league than Ralph Hasenhuttl’s men, and with Chelsea loanee Armando Broja still a doubt for this clash their output looks even more limited, as they average a goal every 48 minutes when the Armenian is on the pitch, and only every 164 minutes when he’s not.
Under 2.5 Goals
Villa don’t have that same issue, having scored in all but one of their 12 outings this season, with the exception coming against a defensively solid Chelsea side.
Even without new striker Danny Ings on available, they still have the attacking potency to cause problems.
However, when both defence and attack cancel each other out like on this occasion, we often see low scoring, cagey affairs and that could very well be the case here.
With just one point separating them, it’s more of a must not lose game for either, so we can’t see them pushing for late goals and risking defeat.
The unders market looks the most appealing for us when there’s little to split the two sides, and with Southampton seeing just the one goal or fewer in five of their last seven league outings we’d be surprised if this was a goal fest between two sides not exactly firing on all cylinders at the moment.
PREDICTION:
UNDER 2.5 GOALS
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