Southampton vs Liverpool Prediction

Two sides in contrasting Premier League form meet at St. Mary’s on Sunday. We look ahead to the clash with our Southampton vs Liverpool prediction and preview.

Southampton vs Liverpool Stats: The Key Insights

• Liverpool triumphed in 69.5% of pre-match simulations by the Opta supercomputer.
• Mohamed Salah has been directly involved in 67% of Liverpool’s Premier League goals this season, the highest ratio by a player for any side in the division in 2024-25.
• Southampton could become just the eighth side in English top-flight history to start a campaign with 10 defeats in 12 games or fewer.

Top and bottom meet when high-flying Liverpool visit struggling Southampton for Sunday’s Premier League clash.

Arne Slot’s side are five points clear at the top of the Premier League table heading into this matchday. That’s after they beat Aston Villa 2-0 in their last outing before this month’s international break.

Mohamed Salah wrapped up that victory with a late goal, having also inadvertently teed up Darwin Núñez’s first-half strike at Anfield. It took the Egyptian onto eight goals and six assists in this season’s competition.

Salah has been directly involved in 67% of Liverpool’s 21 Premier League goals this term, the highest ratio of any player in the 2024-25 campaign. Only Southampton great Matt Le Tissier, in 1993-94 (69% – 34/49), has scored or assisted a higher proportion of a side’s goals in a single season in the competition.

Salah has also both scored and assisted in the same match 35 times in the Premier League (including four already this term), just one shy of Wayne Rooney’s record of 36 games for Manchester United with both a goal and assist in the competition.

Southampton know all too well about the Liverpool forward’s prowess too, considering Salah has been directly involved in 11 goals (7 goals, 4 assists) in 11 top-flight appearances against them.

Aside from Salah’s one-man conquest for records, Liverpool have won nine of their 11 league games under Slot so far. Another victory here would see the Dutchman become the joint-fastest manager to reach 10 wins from the start of a Premier League career (12 games), alongside Guus Hiddink in May 2009 and Carlo Ancelotti in November 2009 (both with Chelsea).

In a contrast of fortunes, last season’s Championship play-off winners are bottom of the table and already four points from safety after a 2-0 defeat at Wolves last time out.

Russell Martin’s men have lost nine of their 11 Premier League games this season (W1 D1), and could become just the eighth side in English top-flight history to reach 10 defeats in 12 or fewer matches from the start of a campaign.

All of the previous seven teams went on to get relegated, and Martin will know his side must improve everywhere to stop the rot, but particularly up top. Southampton are the lowest scorers in the Premier League this season (7), while only Crystal Palace (5.1%) have a lower shot conversion rate than Saints (6.2%). Just 30.1% of Southampton’s shots have been on target this term (34/113) as well, a league-low ratio.

That said, Southampton have only lost one of their last eight Premier League home games against teams starting the day top of the table (W2 D5). They are also unbeaten in their last four such outings (W2 D2), including a 1-0 win over Liverpool in January 2021, since a 1-0 defeat to Manchester City in May 2018.

Martin will hope to be boosted by the returns of Will Smallbone, Ross Stewart, and Ryan Fraser, but Aaron Ramsdale and Jan Bednarek will miss out through injury.

Visiting Liverpool will likely be without Trent Alexander-Arnold after his hamstring issue against Villa, while this game comes too early for Alisson, Federico Chiesa and Diogo Jota. However, there is a chance Harvey Elliott could make his comeback for the trip to the south coast after he returned to training during the international break.

Southampton vs Liverpool Head-to-Head

Southampton have won just one of their last 14 Premier League games against Liverpool (D3 L10), a 1-0 home victory in January 2021 thanks to Danny Ings’ early goal.

Their last encounter was a thriller, however, after a 4-4 away draw in May 2023.

Liverpool conceded as many goals in that game as they had in their previous six visits to St. Mary’s combined, though it’s hard to imagine a repeat here considering the Reds’ form.

Southampton vs Liverpool Prediction

The Opta supercomputer struggled to see anything other than a win for Liverpool – the visitors triumphed in a huge 69.5% of 10,000 pre-match simulations.

Southampton’s chances were rated at a meagre 12.7% in the same data-led sims, with the draw more likely at 17.8%.

Slot’s side are now the favourites to win the Premier League title, achieving top-flight glory in 60.9% of Opta’s end-of-season predictions. At the other end, Southampton finished bottom of the league in a concerning 67.8% of simulations.

Southampton vs Liverpool Predicted Lineups

Opta Power Rankings

The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.

Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.

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