Brighton v Southampton Betting Preview: Can Saints leapfrog Man Utd and Man City?

Despite a relatively slow start to the campaign, Brighton have gradually improved in recent weeks, with an impressive win at Aston Villa sandwiched between draws with Burnley and Liverpool.

The latter came as a result of a late Pascal Gross penalty but the result could have been very different had Maupay not put his first-half spot-kick wide.

But while the Seagulls may have come away from the game disappointed not to get more, it’s a solid result to build on and they’ll be hoping the presence of their fans can inspire them to just their third league win of the season.

They’re currently four points clear of the bottom three but they’ll be wary of the teams above them starting to pick up points.

On the other hand, Southampton can leapfrog both Manchester City and Manchester United into fifth place with a win at the AMEX.

Having started the campaign with two consecutive defeats, they’ve turned their fortunes around by winning five of their last eight Premier League games.

An injury to talisman Ings threatened to derail their impressive turnaround but they’ve coped reasonably well without him thanks in large part to Che Adams and James Ward-Prowse.

The England international’s return will be a huge boost to Southampton, who threw away a two-goal lead to lose to United last weekend.

And in an unpredictable season, if Ings can quickly rediscover his goalscoring touch then Southampton fans could be forgiven for daring to dream of Europe.

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All odds and markets correct as of date of publication