Nottingham Forest vs Southampton Preview

It’s a Premier League relegation battle this Monday as bottom-placed Southampton will travel to the City Ground to face fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest.

The hosts come into this tie with a better chance of survival than their visitors having taken 30 points from their 34 games this season, six more than Southampton.

They have the opportunity to close the gap to safety by completing the first top-flight league double over their visitors since 1995/96 after winning 1-0 at St Mary’s earlier in the campaign.

However, achieving that might require them to end a 13-game run of league games without a clean sheet (W1, D3, L9). Doing that seems more likely to come at home, where the Tricky Trees have picked up 80% of their points. That makes them the team that has won more points at home than away in the Premier League this season.

Meanwhile, further confidence comes from the fact that Forest have kept clean sheets in three of their four home games against sides ranked 15th or worse ahead of the weekend (W3, D1).

Southampton will travel to Nottingham looking to end a run of nine games without a win (D3, L6). The latest in that sequence was a 3-1 defeat to Newcastle last time out that made them one of the four PL sides conceding 60+ goals in the league this season.

While they will look to salvage a point here, the Saints’ away form across their last eight trips doesn’t make for very pleasant reading (W1, D2, L5). Another case of jitteriness is their record on Mondays, with Southampton losing each of their last three PL games played on this weekday.

Meanwhile, Forest are also winless in their last 12 PL games played on Mondays (D7, L5), despite getting on the scoresheet in seven of the last eight.

Other fixtures taking place this week in the Premier League Fixtures:

Premier League Table