Southampton v Sunderland Betting Tips

Two teams heading in different directions in the Premier League in the form of Southampton and Sunderland face each other on Wednesday night in the last-16 of the League Cup.

Southampton recovered from their unlucky Europa League defeat against sleeping European giants Inter Milan to secure a point away at oil-rich Manchester City at the weekend. The way they forced the ball-playing City defence into making errors was fantastic and, if you were being ultra-critical, you would say that Southampton should have won that game if they had been more clinical in the final third.

It will be interesting to see what view Southampton take on the League Cup as we start to enter the latter stages of the competition. Will they look to secure a trophy and prove they are a club making real progress or will they cast it aside and hope to go further in the Premier League and Europa League. Of course these two options are not mutually exclusive.

As expected, Southampton fielded a weaker team in their first League Cup match of the season at home to Crystal Palace and came away with the win despite the away side putting out a decent XI.

It is actually quite exciting when Southampton make changes to their XI as we get to see the latest graduates from the production line of arguably the greatest academy in the country. When teams play academy youngsters, we expect them to be played off the park, however, the Saints’ graduates never look out of their depth and many are even playing regularly in the Premier League.

One of those players is James Ward-Prowse. The 21-year-old has seemingly been around a long time and has plenty of first team experience at the Saints. He will no doubt be an England player one day and has all the attributes to do exceedingly well in his career.

I expect Ward-Prowse to do well against this poor looking Sunderland side and he should have plenty of room to work his magic in midfield. He has excellent technique when striking the ball – hence why he is often on set-piece duty for the Saints – and I think he could bag a goal at St. Mary’s on Wednesday. You can get this at the very good price of 5/1 courtesy of Paddy Power.

There is clearly something wrong in the fabric of Sunderland Athletic Football Club as we have seen them do nothing but battle relegation for the last five years or so. Striker Jermain Defoe recently gave an interview with the club website saying that the club had gone ‘backwards’. Odd that Sunderland chose to publish that through their own media outlet .

This worrying state of affairs has obviously transported itself onto the pitch and the team look lazy and unmotivated – inexcusable no matter what situation you are in. Unfortunately, mainly for the fans, relegation looks like an inevitability – even at this early stage of the season.

Perhaps this League Cup match actually comes at a perfect time for the Black Cats. Whilst many will say it is a distraction from their survival ambitions, I would say it gives a great chance for other players to come in and show that they should be in the Premier League team ahead of some of the inept players wearing the Sunderland shirt week in week out at the moment.

Having said that, confidence will still be low and going away to in-form Southampton is hardly the fixture you want if you are looking for a confidence boost.

Obviously there is no value in backing the Southampton win here. I agree with the bookies here and think the Saints will easily wipe their north east opponents out the way. However, having said this, ‘Southampton to Win Both Halves’, at 12/5, is certainly worth backing. The Saints have prided themselves on their defensive solidity this season and it’s hard to envisage this poor Sunderland team causing them much trouble, while finding the net at the other end shouldn’t prove too hard a task and the hosts are expected to start things off in that respect before the interval.

Lastly, the third bet to go for is ‘Over 2.5 Goals’ at 6/5. As mentioned above, a convincing victory from the hosts is expected and scoring three goals could prove relatively easy, although this bet allows for a Sunderland goal too.

See all of our EFL Cup tips here.