West Brom travel to Southampton in the second round of Premier League fixtures. Both teams have undergone a summer of transaction, with both clubs changing manager and having a shake up of their playing roster.
Southampton have been at the forefront of transfer news this summer, after an exodus of key first team players, losing players such as Dejan Lovren, Adam Lallana and even talismanic striker Rickie Lambert. This has provoked new manager Ronald Koeman to bring in some new players so they can maintain their place in the league and perhaps even build on their impressive 8th place finish last season. Bringing in players such as Fraser Forster from Celtic, and Shane Long from Hull, the Saints certainly have a team capable of staying in the Premier League, and see their meeting with West Brom as an opportunity to get their first win of the season after last weekend's 2-1 loss to Liverpool.
West Brom underwent a season of change too, replacing manager Pepe Mel with Scot Alan Irvine. A slightly controversial choice regarding Irvine's lack of Premier League credentials, but his team got their season up and running with a 2-2 draw at home to Sunderland. They've brought in some top talent, such as Costa Rican World Cup star Cristian Gamboa, and Joleon Lescott on a costless transfer, and Alan Irvine also having made an enquiry for Giorgios Samaras, who is a costless agent after leaving Celtic. But West Brom have let go of first team players such as Billy Jones, Zoltan Gera and Steven Reid.
Many would fancy Southampton for this game given how strong their team are and their amount of attacking prowess. In last weekend's game at Anfield, Dusan Tadic and Nathaniel Clyne were impressive and kept attacking Liverpool's defence, with Long and Morgan Schneiderlin coming so very close to stealing all three points for the South Coast club. They're likely to cause West Brom's defence a lot of problems. Despite their talented roster, Koeman isn't getting too carried away and appears to be treating West Brom with the same respect as they did with Liverpool. "I think it is not good to speak about the big clubs,..If you look back to the results in the first matches, all of them are very close. What is a big team? The competition is very competitive and you have to play good and you have to be good to win against everybody. Sometimes the name of the club means a lot but you have to prepare yourself to play well against everybody."
West Brom's source of attack comes from Victor Anichebe and youngster Saido Berahino who scored both of the goals at the Stadium Of Light last weekend. Stephane Sessegnon and new signing Brown Ideye could also threaten for Irvine's side, who arguably deserved to win against Sunderland, and looked on course to do so, had it not been for Sebastian Larsson's late equaliser. They travel to Southampton knowing they have the potential to get the three points.
The players to look out for would be Dusan Tadic for Southampton and Berahino for West Brom. Tadic was causing all sorts of problems for the Saints last week and he's likely to follow that up here, should he be able to link up with Nathaniel Clyne again. Berahino managed two goals at the Hawthorns last weekend and he'll probably add to his tally on Saturday, should he get the service from the midfield.