A trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea is probably not the best place to go for Southampton to try and pick up their first Premier League win of the season.
Their season so far has consisted of four draws and two defeats, with just four goals scored and seven conceded.
Taking into account that the Saints said goodbye to Danny Ings during the summer transfer window after scoring a total of 46 goals in 100 games across all competitions for the club, it doesn't come as a surprise that goals haven't exactly been plentiful so far this season.
On The Chalkboard
One player who has been a regular figure for the Saints so far this season is Mohamed Elyounoussi, who returned to the club over the summer after a two-year loan spell with Celtic after being originally signed by Southampton from FC Basel in 2018 for a fee of £16.2m.
After being an unused substitute for Southampton's opening two league games of the campaign, the £60k-per-week earner (according to Spotrac), has played 90 minutes in each of their four most recent league fixtures, scoring in the 2-2 draw against Newcastle United in his first top-flight appearance this term.
Outside of the Premier League, Elyounoussi had a busy game in Southampton's 8-0 Carabao Cup win over Newport County earlier in the season, when scored a hat-trick and provided two assists. However, given that this was against a League Two club, this sort of performance should not have been greatly surprising.
In Southampton's previous Premier League outing which saw them lose 1-0 to Wolves, Elyounoussi failed to make even one key pass in the game and earned a rather disappointing overall match rating of 6.4/10, making him the lowest-rated Southampton player on the day according to SofaScore. That says to us that perhaps it could be the right time to drop him from the team for the visit to Chelsea.
With the clash against Thomas Tuchel's side - who are coming off the back of a midweek defeat to Juventus in the Champions League - in mind, perhaps this could be a good time for Hasenhuttl to alter his starting XI a bit. He should start with putting Elyounoussi on the bench and perhaps seeing if he could be better used as an impact substitute to help the team secure their first league win of the season.
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