 Wednesday, 28th Sep 2011 09:08 Saints have a great chance to consolidate their position at the top of the table. Saints travel to Cardiff for their first ever visit to the two year old Cardiff City Stadium on the back of a night of Championship football which saw all of their rivals slip up with only Derby of the top six going into the evening picking up a point, although tonight with only two games sceduled could be said to be a bigger programme as it consists of not only Cardiff V Saints but another big promotion clash in Middlesbrough V Leicester, with Boro knowing a win for them and Saints failing to get three points would send them top, they will be looking to capitalise on last nights result as well. Cardiff for their part are in a bit of an injury crisis, in their game with Leicester on Sunday they lost three players to injury before half time and a fourth in the second half who stayed on the pitch but was a virtual passenger, its perhaps indicitive of their team spirit that they still kep the Fox's at bay and got a point, showing that even if they have an injury crisis they still have a squad capable of holding its own. For Nigel Adkins the problem is deciding whether to keep faith with the same starting XI or freshen things up a little, when you are top of the league the danger is complacency and although every time i have brought up the subject of our rather leaky defence on the message board I have been shouted down and been told all that matters is that we are top of the league, Nigel Adkins will know that you dont stay top for long unless you cut out sloppy play, be it at the back or anywhere else on the pitch. He will want to see his defence start keeping clean sheets, in 8 league games we have managed to do that just twice, both in the opening 4 games, the most pleasing thing for a manager is always a win, the second most pleasing thing is a clean sheet, in League 1 last year Brighton's strength was their ability to keep it tight at the back and nick late goals, at Burnley we were below par and a sloppy goal conceded meant we were playing catch up so our goal was not thewinner it could have been but an equaliser. If we can start to get it together defensively then there is no reason why we cant win at Cardiff and win well, of course Cardiff will feel they have players to replace those injured, but they wont be as good as the ones they replaced, this is a good time to play the Bluebirds and we need to make it count. The main decision for Nigel Adkins will be in midfield, Richard Chaplow is pushing for a place in the starting line up after two solid displays as sub in the last games, so does Adkins consider starting defensively and putting him in in place of Guly, or does he consider something a bit more radical and slot him into his true position in the centre of midfield in place of Hammond, its a tough call for Adkins, the easiest thing would be to start with the same starting line up, but Adkins will perhaps feel that to do that would be a little complacent and that would filter though to the team. Tonight is a big game for Saints make no doubt of it, despite our good start we could drop off the top, we need to avoid that and show our rivals as brighton showed League 1 last year that they are going to chase long and hard to catch us. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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