I kicked off today’s research for the predicted lineups piece by scanning the team injury reports first. Honestly, this part always feels like detective work. For Norwich, I double-checked that Josh Sargent was available after his ankle scare last week – some fan forum rumors had me second-guessing. Cross-referenced with local Norwich press tweets confirming he trained fully yesterday.
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Southampton’s updates were messier though. Found three conflicting reports about Che Adams’ thigh issue. BBC said he’d start, The Athletic claimed he’d be benched, and some random blog insisted he was out entirely. Ended up tracking down Russell Martin’s pre-match press conference video where he gave that annoying non-answer: “We’ll assess him matchday morning.” Ugh. Rolled with Adams in the lineup since he’s their top scorer but added a disclaimer.
The formation predictions made me want to bang my head on the keyboard. Southampton’s been flip-flopping between 4-3-3 and 3-5-2 all season. Watched their last two match highlights back – noticed how often Manning tucks inside during attacks. That sealed it for me: went with wingbacks.
Norwich predicted lineup:
- GK: Gunn
- DEF: Stacey, Duffy, Gibson, McCallum
- MID: McLean, Núñez, Rowe
- FWD: Sargent, Barnes, Sainz
Southampton predicted lineup:
- GK: Bazunu
- DEF: Walker-Peters, Harwood-Bellis, Bednarek, Stephens, Manning
- MID: Smallbone, Downes, Aribo
- FWD: Adams, Armstrong
Final headache was Flynn Downes’ yellow card suspension. Almost missed that until I saw a West Ham fan account jokingly thanking Southampton for fielding him last week. Had to recheck the FA disciplinary site – yep, accumulated five yellows. Replaced him with Shea Charles in initial draft before local papers confirmed Stephens would drop into midfield. Whole process took three coffees and two deleted paragraphs.
