A look at the predictions made by Chris Sutton and Paul Merson for this weekend’s fixtures.
Another big weekend of Premier League football is about to kick off, with Arsenal taking on strugglers Everton knowing they must get back to winning ways to prevent the title race from getting away from them.
Chelsea find themselves in the thick of the race, and they take on London rivals Brentford hoping to keep it that way on Sunday evening. Spurs are also in action on Sunday, taking on Southampton after a frustrating draw with Rangers on Thursday. Here we round up the predictions from BBC Sport’s Chris Sutton and SportsKeeda’s Paul Merson for those fixtures,
Southampton vs Tottenham
Chris Sutton
“This should be a great game of football. It’s one for the purists, really, because Southampton will play their defined style under Russell Martin and Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham will definitely do the same. Both managers have been criticised recently and some of the stuff written and said about Postecoglou after Spurs lost to Chelsea was staggering, although it is the same after every defeat.
“As I said on the Monday Night Club, on their day Spurs are the best team to watch in the Premier League, but they are just patchy. They should get over the line here, though, because Southampton have bigger problems. It looks like Saints are going to get relegated but I hope they see the bigger picture when it comes to Martin.
“For starters, he got them promoted, which wasn’t an easy job. Keeping them up was always going to be even harder but, because Southampton have had a pretty recent spell of doing OK in the Premier League, their fans think they should be doing much better.
“It was a similar story with Leicester under Steve Cooper, where expectations were unrealistic. He got the sack but I hope Saints stick with Martin because with a bit of patience they could come back, stronger. Prediction: 1-2.”
Paul Merson
“It all depends on what happens with Tottenham against Rangers in the Europa League. I was watching the Chelsea game and I predicted them to pull off a comeback against Spurs after half-time. I wasn’t surprised at all by how Spurs blew their lead and ended up losing that game!
“Now that’s a huge problem for Tottenham because they are now slowly becoming a team that is entertaining without getting the results they actually need. Spurs will play exactly like Southampton in this game. But this might suit Ange Postecoglou because they have better players compared to their opponents.
“I expect this game to be very open with both teams having a real go at each other. Spurs could win simply because of the quality they have in their ranks compared to Southampton. Prediction: Southampton 1-3 Tottenham Hotspur.”
