Southampton v West Ham, 16:00 With all the furore over what was being spent by who in North London this summer the work of Southampton and the Hammers went pretty-much un-commented upon, if not unnoticed by most but both sides invested considerable amounts in their squad, and in particular in their first eleven. West Ham have subsequently been unlucky to see Andy Carroll ruled out through injury, possibly until New Year, although you do wonder how much of that apparent susceptibility to knocks is down to the big striker’s famous love of the good life. Southampton, on the other hand, went and invested in an Italian international forward only to discover they have an England striker on their hands, and one in some pretty good form. Rickie Lambert is a poster-boy for perseverance and now has a couple of caps and a couple of goals for his nation, and if he can maintain his form the Saints striker will give the kind of performance West Ham are so badly in need of, both linking play and acting as a goal threat. With only three clean sheets in their last twenty league games the home side are far from where they want to be defensively, and last year they struggled to put away sides in the middle of the table but with the Hammers only managing a paltry 0.6 goals per away game last year and missing a number of forwards the home side might not need to score more than one to win today. Ladbrokes have Southampton at 27/10 to win by a 1-goal margin, or 13/2 to take a 1-0 victory if you fancy something a bit more specific in that directon. Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino has no new injury concerns, and will probably continue with record signing Dani Osvaldo alongside Rickie Lambert in attack. West Ham were hit by the news of Andy Carroll’s injury this week, and new signing Mladen Petric is not yet match fit while Joe Cole, Stuart Downing and George McCartney are all missing through injury.
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 06:50:00 +0000
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