Southampton vs Chelsea | Team News | Expected Line-Ups | Predicted Score

Chelsea will be looking to get back to winning ways following a poor run of form when they take on Southampton at St Mary’s on Saturday afternoon.

The Blues have won just one of their last five league games and saw their hopes of finishing in the top four dealt a major blow after they were held to a 1-1 draw by West Ham at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

That result has left Chelsea sitting fifth in the table and ten points adrift of Tottenham so Antonio Conte knows his side face a tough task to qualify for the Champions League next season.

Southampton are also in desperate need of points as they head in to the weekend action 18th in the table and three points from safety following their 3-2 defeat at Arsenal last time out.

However, Mark Hughes’s men do have a game in hand over some of their relegation rivals so they’ll be looking to boost their survival hopes with a positive result on Sunday.

Team news

Chelsea could welcome Ross Barkley back in to the squad but David Luiz remains out with a long-term knee injury while Nathan Ampadu is also still unavailable.

Andreas Christensen is pushing for a recall while Conte could freshen things up with Tiemoue Bakayoko, Olivier Giroud and Pedro all hoping to be involved.

Southampton will be without Jack Stephens after he was sent off against Arsenal last week and Hughes has confirmed youngster Jan Bednarek is set to make his full debut.

Steven Davis and Sam McQueen remain out through injury while Shane Long is a major doubt with an ankle problem.

Expected line-ups

Predicted Scored

Southampton 1-2 Chelsea: The Saints have won just one of their last nine league games against Chelsea at home and only Man Utd have won more games at St Mary’s than Chelsea, so the Blues certainly enjoy travelling to the south coast. Southampton have to attack as they need a result and that may leave them vulnerable to being picked up by Chelsea as they can’t just sit back. I’m going for a narrow away win.