Game On! Southampton v Newcastle

Game On at St Mary's Game number 13 of our Premier League season will see us travel to St Mary's Stadium this afternoon where we will face Southampton.

It's been well documented how poor we've been this season so I don't need to go into that again, but our record against newly promoted clubs isn't exactly great and with a long absentee list to contend with I'm left wondering if it will get any better this afternoon?

This game will mean that we've played all three promoted clubs and so far we have just one point to show for it from our previous games against West Ham (a 1-0 home loss) and Reading (a 2-2 away draw). To me that is not good enough but it also isn't a trait that has been reserved for this season. Indeed ever since our return to the Premier League we've struggled against promoted clubs, under both Chris Hughton and Alan Pardew, with only four wins from 12 games against teams fresh from the Championship.

A win this afternoon could see us climb as high as 8th place in the Premier League table if other results go our way and we find ourselves firing on all cylinders in front of goal. To be honest it's unlikely given how we've performed in recent weeks so rather than looking at where we could end up I'd rather we just get the win at all costs.

My match preview is online here if you haven't already had a look at it. It features news of injuries for both sides, a history of meetings between the two clubs and some rather alarming statistics from an NUFC perspective.

With this game being moved as a result of our ongoing participation in the Europa League we are not being broadcast live here in the UK. However there are a number of overseas channels who have picked our game for broadcast so, as ever, should you manage to find a stream of decent quality then by all means feel free to share it with fellow NUFC fans who may not be able to make it to the South coast today.

Team news, as you should now expect, will be published below in full as and when it becomes available.

Howay the lads!

Southampton; Gazzaniga; Clyne, Fonte, Yoshida, Shaw; Schneiderlin, Cork; Puncheon, Lallana (c), Ramirez; Lambert.

Subs: K.Davis, Hooiveld, S.Davis, Rodriguez, Ward-Prowse, Mayuka, Guly.

Newcastle: Krul; Simpson, Williamson, S.Taylor, Santon; Gutierrez (c), Tiote, Anita, Ferguson; Cisse, Ba.

Subs: Harper, Tavernier, Perch, Bigirimana, Marveaux, Sammy Ameobi, Ranger.