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Southampton V Brighton The Preview

Can Saints push themselves over the 11 point mark . they have a chance given that the Seagulls are one of only 4 teams who have failed to beat Southampton this season, so perhaps we will have a rare feeling , that of leaving St Mary's happy.

Out of 25 games this season. Saints have managed to not lose on only 5 occasions, 2 of those were against Ipswich Town, the other 3 games were the win over Everton, the draw at Fulham and our 1-1 draw at the Amex Stadium when Flynn Downes equalised in the second half to give us a share of the spoils.

It looked like Downes would not be getting a look in for this game, with the rumours of a rift between him and Ivan Juric, but it seems that this disagreement could be over after Juric said at the press conference:

"We had a really good chat, I think he understood the mistakes. Even now, after everything, I know he’s a very good player. He is fit."

So it seems that Downes could play some part, although he may be likely to start on the bench.

Another player returning could be Jack Stephens who is fit again after lasting only 11 minutes of his comeback at Ipswich, although both Taylor Harwood-Bellis and midfielder Adam Lallana, who remain unavailable due to minor injuries.

Brighton themselves are a side who seem to be either brilliant or awful, their last League outing was a 3-0 home win over Chelsea, but the game before saw them lose 7-0 at Nottingham Forest in their last away game.

Indeed since their draw against Saints on 29th November was the start of a run in the League that saw them go 8 games without a win in the Premier League, a run that saw 6 draws but only 2 defeats, before brace of wins, but it has been a case of one step forward and another back most of the time in the last 3 months.

So perhaps this aligned with the fact that Brighton are one of only 4 teams that have failed to win against us, gives us more hope than we usually have had this season.

But the big question is whether Ivan Juric will get it right both in his starting line up and the use of substitutes, so far he has usually managed to get only one or the other right but not both in the same game.

But perhaps this might be the game where that happens and the stars align and we finally win again at home in the League.

But it is anyone's guess what the line up will be, and if we as Southampton fans haven't got a clue, what hope do Brighton and their manager Fabian Hurzeler have.

So all we can do is get behind the team, keep our fingers crossed and hopefully by the end of the day, we will not have to worry about ending up with the lowest points total in Premier League history.


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