Portsmouth Suited To Southampton Scrap Feels Former Hitman | OneFootball

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Former Championship star Sam Parkin believes the weekend’s game between Southampton and Portsmouth will be full of scrappy football and tough fights; the sort of game which favours Pompey.

John Mousinho managed to keep Portsmouth up in the Championship last season and they have spent money in the recently closed transfer window to avoid last season’s struggles.

The Fratton Park outfit have made a good start to the season, as they sit eighth in the league table and next Mousinho will take his team to Hampshire to face Southampton in a south coast derby on Saturday.

Southampton, under their new boss Will Still, splashed out cash to bring in players in the form of Caspar Jander, Finn Azaz and Leo Scienza.

Still has already won over many of his players and one recently dubbed him a top manager.

Parkin is of the view that Mousinho will agree with him that Southampton in the summer have recruited a different level of players with huge money and stressed that the gap between the two sides is significantly big.

However, he thinks that the derby at the weekend will be a tough battle with scrappy football and pointed out that no club in the league do it better in games like that than Portsmouth.

“Listen, they have got an embarrassment of riches and I am sure John Mousinho would echo that sentiment when he looks at the type of money and the basket they have been shopping in, so there is a big comparison between two sides”, Parkin said on What The EFL (39:00).

“I think on the day it will be a scrap and it will be a fight and no team does it better really than Portsmouth, I think.

“I expect them to go there to upset, press high, and be aggressive from the front and I think they are one of the best teams in the division at that.

“Southampton will have to box clever.

“Southampton will be fine and they will start to motor, but this weekend I can see it being a draw.”

Parkin recently raised his concerns regarding Southampton due to their start to the season, which failed to convince him.

Portsmouth won their last south coast derby in 2010, beating Southampton 4-1, while the last meeting in 2019 ended with a 4-0 victory for Saints.