Both Southampton and Everton will be looking to improve on their bottom-half finishes last season, with both teams showing so far that they're capable of doing so. Everton come into the clash sitting top of the table, only dropping points with a draw against Liverpool last weekend. While Southampton managed to earn themselves a late point with a 3-3 draw at Chelsea.

  • Team News

Ralph Hasenhüttl is boosted by the return of Stuart Armstrong after a two week quarantine from a positive Covid-19 test result. A strong boost indeed, when you consider that Theo Walcott is ruled out against his parent club, while Moussa Djenepo is also recovering from a hamstring injury. Mohammed Salisu isn't expected to feature just yet while elsewhere Ibrahima Diallo may make his way into the starting lineup after coming on as a substitute vs Chelsea.

Carlo Ancelotti will be without Richarlison for this game due to suspension, after he earned himself a red card in the Merseyside Derby last weekend. Right-backs Seamus Coleman (hamstring) and Jonjoe Kenny (ankle) are also unavailable. While there is now growing confidence that James Rodriguez will feature despite big injury fears earlier on in the week.

  • Predicted Lineups

Southampton will stick to their typical 4-2-2-2 formation. With a predicted 11 of:

Mccarthy, Walker-Peters, Bednarek, Vestegaard, Bertrand, Romeu, Ward-Prowse, Armstrong, Redmond, Adams, Ings.

Everton have a strong squad to fill in the vacancies they'll have to deal with for the trip to St Mary's:

Pickford, Jonjoe Kenny, Yerry Mina, Michael Keane, Lucas Digne, Abdoulaye Doucoure, Allan, Andre Gomes, Bernard, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Alex Iwobi.

  • Form Guide

Everton 2-2 Liverpool, Everton 4-2 Brighton, Crystal Palace 1-2 Everton.

Chelsea 3-3 Southampton, Southampton 2-0 West Brom, Burnely 0-1 Southampton.

  • Ones To Watch

Danny Ings is obviously looking to add to his tally for the season, while James Rodriguez and Dominic Calvert-Lewin have been in fine form at the start of this season.

  • Previous Meetings

The two sides recently played out a 1-1 draw at Goodison Park after the restart last season, while the earlier reverse fixture was a 1-2 win for Everton at St Mary's following on from Saints' 0-9 loss to Leicester.

  • Where To Watch On TV

The game will be broadcast live on Sky Sports with a kick off time of 2pm on Sunday.

  • What The Managers Have Said

Ralph Hasenhüttl on Everton: 

"When you see how they play and we have seen how they play in the first few rounds, it’s not a coincidence that they are unbeaten at the moment. They’ve done a fantastic job.

"They have made a few good signings in the summer and seem better organised. Definitely a very strong side but we also played last week against a team that had a lot of quality on the pitch and we showed we aren’t scared.

"We know on a good day we will have chances against every team in the Premier League. This is the goal for the weekend to show them, like in our last game against them, that we are also a strong side that’s not easy to play against."

Ancelotti said on Friday: "James is not definitely out." He had a big haematoma and was not able to train until today.

"Fortunately, I think his recovery was really good and he trained today - he had a partial training session.

'I hope he is going to train tomorrow and we will see if he is in condition to play on Sunday."