Form favours Southampton, history favours West Ham

With Arsenal, Wolves, Spurs and Chelsea to come, this game looks to be West Ham’s best chance of three vital points for some time, even though they don’t have to leave London in that period.

West Ham find themselves in the relegation zone.They surely have Southampton at home earmarked as one of the games they have to pick up a win.

Only Aston Villa and Norwich have conceded more goals than the leaky Saints. However those numbers mask Southampton’s excellent away record where than  have won six and lost just five of their 13 games. Only Wolves, Sheffield United and the top three have conceded LESS goals on the road.

Form

West Ham are seven games without a win although admittedly, thee of those came against Liverpool or Manchester City. Before that win over Bournemouth,they suffered five straight defeats. One win in 13, and in the relegation zone, probably illustrates better than the league table how much West Ham need to win this game.

Southampton ended a run of four straight losses with a home win over hapless Aston Villa. Before that run, however, they had picked up three brilliant wins over Tottenham, Leicester and Chelsea and pulled away from the drop zone.

More Southampton

Just before all that, they lost 1-0 at home to Saturday’s opponents West Ham, Sebastian Haller netting the only goal in the 37th minute.

History

West Ham lead the series 78-50 overall with 46 draws.

Southampton once scored six at the old Upton Park winning 6-2 in 1967. Martin Chivers and Terry Paine scored twice each with Ron Davies and Denis Hollywood adding the first and last goals. Jack Burkett and Geoff Hurst scored for West Ham.

West Ham have won more Premier League matches (17) and more home fixtures (12) against Southampton than they have versus any other side.

More recently, the Hammers have won the last four matches, outscoring the Saints by 9-1.

Team News:

Tomas Soucek (hip) and Ryan Fredricks (shoulder) are unavailable for West Ham, with the latter ruled out for around six weeks having undergone surgery on Wednesday.

Southampton could have Kyle Walker-Peters back after returning to training this week, but Nathan Redmond (muscle) is facing around one month on the sidelines.