Sky Sports Pundit Offers His Predicted Score For Southampton vs Arsenal

Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson has offered his prediction ahead of Arsenal’s trip to Southampton and he sees his former side taking home all three points.

Arsenal head to the south coast this afternoon off the back of a 1-0 win over Qarabag on Thursday night which wrapped-up our Europa League group stage campaign and extended our unbeaten run to 22 games in all competitions.

We currently sit level on points with fourth-placed Chelsea ahead of their trip to Brighton [also 1.30pm kick-off] so Unai Emery will be aiming to collect all three points at St Mary’s and hope for a favour from Chris Hughton’s side the Amex Stadium.

Arsenal will face a Southampton side that haven’t won since September and sit joint bottom of the table following defeat to Burnley last weekend so new boss Ralph Hasenhuttl is under pressure to secure a positive result in his first home game in charge.

However, former Gunners attacker Paul Merson can’t see Arsenal not winning this game and is backing the in-form north Londoners to bag a 3-1 victory this afternoon.

Writing in his column for Sky Sports, Merson said:

Southampton vs Arsenal, 1.30pm

That was a shocking result for Southampton last week. It was end-to-end and maybe they deserved a draw, but the way Arsenal are playing all over the pitch, I can’t see them not getting a result.

It’s getting to the point where Southampton have to win. You need that honeymoon period with the new manager and they’re in danger of missing even that. If they sit back, it will play into Arsenal’s hands even more.

In his first home game, you don’t really want to be sitting 10 behind the ball, so it’ll be interesting to see how they set up.

PAUL PREDICTS: 1-3

We’ll have to wait and see if Merson’s prediction proves accurate but a 3-1 win would maintain the pressure on Chelsea and we could take advantage of any slip-up from the Blues at Brighton to break in to the top four.

That would be a big boost as we head in to the festive period with games against Burnley, Brighton, Liverpool and Fulham coming up over the next fortnight.