Rafael Benitez takes his Newcastle side to St Mary’s in search of a much needed win. The Struggling North East side haven’t recorded a win since beating West Brom back in February.
Benitez is expected to recall Aleksandar Mitrovic to his starting line-up after the striker scored twice last weekend.
Jack Colback is out through suspension, while left-backs Paul Dummett and Massadio Haidara are still injured. Newcastle are also without a win in their last 8 away games -The worst record since 1977.
The starting line-ups have been confirmed and look like this:
Newcastle Starting XI:
Darlow
Mbemba
Taylor
Janmaat
Anita
Shelvey
Sissoko
Wijnaldum
Townsend
Perez
Mitrovic
Southampton Starting XI:
Forster
Van Dijk
Fonte
Betrand
Martina
Clasie
Wanyama
Mane
Long
Tadic
Pelle
My vote is for Elliot as player of the year. Townsend has been decent but hasn’t been here long enough. Several others have worked hard but otherwise had to little impact. Then there are the shirkers. We won’t talk about them. But it looks to me as if Colo has a permanent calf strain. Never heard of that before. And punching the wall and breaking 2 fingers doesn’t help the club either.
GeordieTwo(Quote)