Dan takes his look at this Saturday's coming fixture against West Ham United as Saints look to end their goal drought.

On Saturday Saints take on bottom of the table West Ham at St.Mary’s for their second Premier League game of the season and second consecutive game at home. Following a 0-0 stalemate with Swansea last time out, plenty of positives as well as negatives can be taken from the game and hopefully improvements have been implemented this week in training.

As for the opponents, West Ham are fresh from a 4-0 spanking at Old Trafford. Despite Manchester United being exceptionally good that day, West Ham didn’t really try much to get something from the game and even their manager Slaven Bilic said that he expected more.

West Ham were missing some key players through injury on Sunday and a few are set to return against Southampton with Michail Antonio potentially being one of them.

Many outsiders, including myself, have admired West Ham’s business this summer after brining in Javier Hernandez for £16m, Marco Arnautovic for £25, Pablo Zabaletta for free, and Joe Hart on loan. However, at the end of the day it is likely that Saints and West Ham will be competing for similar positions in the table this season but I doubt a result in the second week of the season will affect either sides’ hopes of a European place.

Despite a heavy loss on the opening weekend, West Ham are likely to have more of a go in this game as they know that they’re more likely to get a result down at St.Mary’s than up at Old Trafford. However, Saints will hopefully be looking to prove the fans wrong after a disappointing draw against a poor Swansea team by getting three points in this fixture.

After a 3-1 loss in this fixture last season I’m sure Saints would like to get a bit of revenge back on West Ham but to do this they will have to end their wretched home goal drought which I’m backing them to do this weekend.

Saints are likely to welcome the debut of club-record signing Mario Lemina who was an unused substitute against Swansea and, even though a deal is likely to be done this week, it is unlikely that, if signed, William Carvalho will feature for West Ham after it was reported that a fee of around £40m was agreed.

Prediction:

Currently I’m sticking by predicting a draw but I won’t be surprised if either side can pull a win out of the hat as they’re both definitely capable. Even though it sounds poor, two points from our opening two games will be the best start to a season Saints have had for I believe three seasons and four from our possible first six will be even better, especially with the kind fixtures coming up! 2-2 is what I’m backing with Gabbiadini to end his drought and Lemina to get a debut goal but I can see Hernandez scoring so we’ll have to see what happens!

Photo: Action Images

Sanguin added 10:42 - Aug 17 As much as I want a win, I'll be happy as long as we break our goal drought at home.
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helpineedsomebody added 11:04 - Aug 17 westham have finished their training but weve still got 2 dummies
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SanMarco added 11:49 - Aug 17 The law of averages says we must score soon but the law of Yoshi/Stephens says that any side that attacks us at St. Mary's is likely to get one too so 1-1 for me.
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GeordieSaint added 19:08 - Aug 17 Ah West Ham, exactly the sort of transfer strategy we should not be following. Chucking huge sums with no plan whatsoever, anyone fancy paying snoddy 100 g a week or whatever? Hilarious
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