Surely this years game against Liverpool cannot be as thrilling as last years ! saying that the history books say it can !

One thing that seems to be consistent about Liverpool's visits to Southampton be it at St Mary's or back in the old days at the Dell is that you rarely got a boring encounter.

Many have been storming games with plenty of goals, the 4-1 in October 1989, the Valentines day massacre of 1994 and who can forget the final meeting of the two sides at the Dell in 2000 when Saints overturned a 3-0 deficit with 17 minutes remaining to snatch a draw and leave Liverpool holding on in the final minutes.

But as exciting as all those games were, I'm sure most Saints fans would prefer a comfortable victory that doesn't induce heart attacks.

Of course last seasons Saints hero is playing for the other side last time out and the irony is that shortly after half time in that game there weren't many Saints supporters who felt much love for Sadio Mane, he had just missed a penalty, a goal that if he had scored it would have been his first Premier League goal for five months since scoring in the fixture at Anfield.

Claude Puel has virtually a full squad to pick from with the only players likely to miss out being Shane Long and Matt Targett, however there are plenty in the squad who are not quite 100%, Cedric looks set to return and is much needed, however he hasn't played for seven weeks and is probably not ready for 90 minutes.

Dusan Tadic will be patched up and wearing a mask, Dick Turpin also wore a mask and robbed people on their travels, we will be hoping for more of that from our masked marauder this afternoon.

The side will virtually pick itself assuming all those with minor knocks are fit, at the back it wlll be Fraser Forster with Cedric, Fonte, VVW & Bertrand.

The central three will almost certainly be Romeu and Davis and then Puel will have to decide who is best suited to the fray from Clasie and Ward Prowse, the Fenchman seems to pick either of those ahead of Hojbjerg who usually has to settle for a place on the bench in the league.

Up front it will probably be Charlie Austin, Nathan Redmond and Dusan Tadic although with his facial injury Puel could opt for Sofiane Boufal.

The bench will be key, it will be about getting the best out of the likes of Dusan Tadic and Charlie Austin in the first hour and then getting Boufal on to work his magic.

I have a sneaking suspicion though that Shane Long might make the bench, if he does then I would not expect to see him risked unless it was desperate and then only for short period.

What we do need to do though is cut out the lapses in concentration defensively we have suffered of late, do that and it will be a lot easier to score goals, that may sound strange, but it is always harder to score when you are chasing a game, the key to our success last season was that in the final games of the season we kept it tight and took our chances.

We didnt do that in the first half of last season and arent doing it at the moment.

Here's to looking forward to another great game between the sides and hopefully it will be one that makes it another long journey back to Merseyside for Liverpool fans.

Photo: Action Images

halftimeorange added 13:02 - Nov 19 Id like to think we'll win but my head says we won't. The Hull game was a shambles and Claude needs to sort out all the pretty passing and concentrate the players' minds on attack. For what it's worth, I'd start JWP. He looks hungrier these days and his crosses will expose the only vulnerability that Liverpool have - in the centre of defence. Saints will be hard pushed to stop them scoring. Off to the game now - with some trepidation.

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