3 bold Premier League predictions: Norwich beat Leicester

2. Southampton win at West Ham

West Ham host Southampton on Saturday in another match that will help decide who remains in the Premier League and who will be heading down to the Championship next season. Southampton were the early-season strugglers but have managed to climb out of the relegation zone.

Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side are far from safe though and could do with a few more wins to secure survival. West Ham have been consistently poor all season but have looked marginally better since David Moyes took over at the London Stadium. That was evident on Monday night when they almost became the first league side to beat Liverpool this season but ultimately fell to the champions-elect.

The Hammers will have been devastated to lose in the fashion they did but they should take great heart from that performance. If they can regularly replicate that sort of performance then they should still be a Premier League side come May.

Confidence is the real key for both of these sides though. When a team is hovering around the bottom of the league, it just takes a minor blow to set the team’s confidence back a step. That means that the first goal will be crucial in this match as it will provide the scoring team with the belief they can go on to take all three points.

Perhaps more importantly, it will remind the side that have gone behind that their season has been difficult and points have been hard to come by. Southampton will be the side to find this all-important goal though and it will come courtesy of their talisman, Danny Ings.

Ings will open the scoring and quickly make that a double in the first half. West Ham will have a fightback and Michail Antonio will get one back for the Hammers. It won’t be enough though and Southampton will hold on to take all three points back home.