Prediction League: Endangered Magpies at Home

LDLLWLWLLLLLLLL. These are Newcastle's away results this season. It looked for all the world like they were going to get a valuable, hard fought draw at Carrow Road last week, but no. Another loss took their current run to 8 (EIGHT). A run so poor it deserves spelling out in brackets. The full vidiprinter treatment.

It's been 11(ELEVEN) games since they kept an away clean sheet. Only Aston Villa have less points on their travels this season. Any geordies who thought last season's shambles were rock bottom have been sadly mistaken.

Southampton meanwhile are doing rather well.

Shane Long is back for this one and is being touted as the solution to last weekend's scoring troubles. As long as the Irish international is the key to our team's attacking fortunes then any ambitions of finishing higher than 7th are a mite fanciful.

Koeman does have a fitter J Rod and Charlie Austin to call upon tomorrow. You fancy whoever gets the nod tomorrow to have a field day against the magpies.

To the predictions:

The one bright side of not getting any penalties on Sunday was my 1-0 prediction has moved me closer to the pack.

*Latecomers to the league

Merse: 3-1
"I watched Newcastle the other week and they've got some good players, but they aren't a team."

Lawro: 2-0
"Regardless of what Benitez does with his squad this week, I cannot see them getting anything at St Mary's."

Tommy: 2-1
"2-1 Saints"

Paul: 2-1
"2-0 Leicester. Just kidding, I think we will manage to stick 2 past them. But Mitrovic is looking good, so 2-1 Saints."

George: 2-0
"Newcastle are awful away from home, and whilst I don't think they'll be quite so bad as they have been in the last two times they've come down, I can't see them beating us in all honesty unless we have an absolute shocker. 2-0 Saints, Pelle to grab a goal."

Dan: 2-0
"2-0 Saints"

Jake: 2-1
"I think Newcastle are a tougher proposition now than they were under McClaren. But, I'm confident Saints can get a 2-1 win on Saturday."

Connor: 3-1
"3-1 Saints"

Will: 4-0
"It would be very "Southampton" of us to find a way not to win this game but Newcastle are truly awful. They have invested in all the wrong areas of the squad and have no balance to the side. This could be fun."