by @dotyvandal
Southampton, our opponents this weekend for anybody living under a rock, seem to be a team in disarray. Fans refuse to redeem their season tickets, Schneiderlin, one of their few remaining key players, refuses to play, and to make matters worse they look close to signing Shane Long for £12.5million.
Soton, a side that finished 8th last season (under the guidance of Pochettino, who has chosen to take on the managerial challenge that is Tottenham, who we weren’t interested in for once by the way), just 8pts behind apparent title challengers United, have sold the likes of Lallana, Lambert, Lovren, Shaw & Chambers, whom excluding the latter, contributed massively to their successful 13/14 campaign and their incredible journey from the depths of the football league which should not be forgotten, and replaced them with Graziano Pelle (£9m), Dusan Tadic (£10.9), Ryan Bertrand (season loan), Saphir Taider (season loan) & Fraser Forster (£10m).
I just can’t see any outcome where they leave Anfield this Sunday unscathed, especially after our impressive dismantlement of Dortmund a few days ago, who, although fielded a weakened defense, had pretty much their best attack on show (bar Reus, fuck I said Reus) and we still kept a much needed cleansheet, perhaps due to the debuts of Lovren & Manquillo who were solid to say the least. In attack, Sturridge, Coutinho & Sterling were sharp as hell, the link-up play between the three, for a friendly was incredible, for the first time this summer we looked like the team we were last season, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
It sounds as though the deal to bring in Moreno won’t be concluded until tomorrow or Friday night, however I doubt he’ll feature anytime soon with up-coming fixtures of City & Tottenham where Rodgers may favor a starting XI with more experience facing those sides, at least in defense.
I think we’ll line-up something similar to what we saw against Dortmund on Sunday (Mignolet, Manquillo, Skrtel, Lovren, Johnson, Gerrard, Can, Coutinho, Henderson, Sterling & Sturridge) and we should win comfortably. I have a feeling I’ll be saying that a lot this season, but we should be, we should win every single game at Anfield, and it doesn’t matter who. Last season we lost this meeting and we have a chance to rectify that from the off. , with back-to-back away fixtures at City & Tottenham getting off to a good start is imperative. I’m going with a repeat 4-0 win at home.