Who will win the relegation battle? Aston Villa vs Southampton preview

The two sides immediately above the dreaded drop-zone are set to go into battle this Saturday and both managers will be desperate to snatch all 3 points, but who will get them?

The home side are on the back of a humiliating 3-1 defeat from their trip to Bradford in the Capital One Cup this week, and Paul Lambert will be saying his prayers that the players do not display another toothless performance in this fixture.

Despite a win in the FA Cup 3rd round against Ipswich Town, Aston Villa's recent performances have been appalling. They lost their last 3 games of the year,8-0 to Chelsea, 4-0 to Tottenham and 3-0 to a struggling Wigan side, and the fans have all but had enough.

Yes, Villa's team is notably a young one, but supporters won't care about that if the team end up getting relegated from the topflight.

Southampton have just one win in their last 5 outings, a 1-0 victory over joint-bottom Reading, but they will be going into this game with the belief that they can head back to Hampshire with all 3 points.

They held Arsenal to a 1-1 at St Mary's in their last league game and will be using that as a platform to build on. With the likes of Gaston Ramirez, Rickie Lambert and Jay Rodriguez all picking up their goal-scoring in recent weeks, Nigel Adkins will be quietly confident that he can use their strength in attack to out-gun the Villains.

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