December 19, 2014

Southampton V Everton – Betting Preview

St Mary’s Stadium – Saturday 20th December at 15.00

Ronald Koeman and his Southampton side are rapidly finding out just how hard life can be in the English Premier League. After a blistering start under their new coach, which saw Saints lose just 2 of their first 12 league games the wheels have fallen off.

If you include the shock 1-0 defeat against Sheffield United in the Carling Cup on Tuesday night, they have now lost 5 games in a row and this bad run was preceded by a disappointing draw at Aston Villa. Although, the South Coast team have been hampered by numerous injuries they would not have been expecting to lose 1-0 against Burnley, as they did last week.

Unfortunately for Saints fans, their upcoming Christmas schedule doesn’t get any easier because after hosting Everton this weekend, they play Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Newcastle United and Swansea City.

Meanwhile on Merseyside, Everton have endured a bit of a rollercoaster season with as many defeats as victories and almost as many goals conceded as scored after 16 games. They also have some injury worries of their own but should still be confident of getting something from this weekend’s game, despite their inconsistencies.

Everton are yet to win at Southampton in the Premier League and although the Saints have produced some good performances in defeat recently, their confidence must be hitting rock bottom by now.

The Under/Over stats for these two sides are inconclusive but with Southampton still not conceding many goals, it could pay to err on the side of caution and back Under 2.5 Goals. However, our recommendation for the match is to back Everton +0.25 at 1.88 and trust that Ross Barkley, Romelu Lukaku and the boys can get the job done.

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