Saints V Happoel Be'er Sheva The Preview Thursday, 8th Dec 2016 13:55 Yet another "most important game of the season" they seem to come round almost weekly at the moment which is a sign of our success. Saints Europa League campaign should have been done and dusted weeks ago, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves for the fact that we now have to pin all our hopes on a single final game against Happoel Be'er Sheva in a do or die fixture. I have harped on about the rotation policy elsewhere so I am not going to say too much more apart from the fact that in my opinion Claude Puel is here to do a job and that job is to win as man football matches as possible and get us as far as possible in both the league and cups and that means sometimes having to play your best team and that occasion is very definitely tonights fixture against the Israeli side. There are no reasons or room for excuses, we have to have the best starting XI out there on the pitch and plenty of options off the bench, anything less and Claude Puel is taking a gamble that if he loses will not only cost the club dearly but his standing with the fans. The players no they have to walk that extra mile sometimes and play a game or two more than they would like, they seem willing to do that judging by the comments in interviews, that being the case let them. If Saints rotate the squad then yes they might get lucky as they did against Inter Milan at home and get the rub of the green and win, however it is more likely that they will dominate for long periods as they did in both Milan and Prague but lack that spark that gives us control of the game and lets us win it. We need the attacking flair of Cedric, we need the defensive partnership of Fonte and VVD, that not only gives us stability but the ability to start attacks and carry the ball out of defence. When you make wholesale changes it affects not only the balance but the fluidity of play, the margin between winning and losing a game at this level is very thin, yes the liks of Yoshida etc did not let us down in Prague or Milan, but they were not up to the standard of those they were replacing and we cannot afford to be even 5% down on quality for this game. The hope is that Be'er Sheva know they have got to score and that will mean they have to come at us a bit and that will allow us to counter attack at pace, this is even more so why we need our first choice back four out there, we need to be solid and also to move the ball quickly to counter attack. I have been a big advocate of Claude Puel, I can see exactly what he is trying to do with the Saints squad and in the main he has done it well, however tonight is the real litmus test, can the Frenchman show that he can vary things to suit the occasion ? That is the big question that needs to be answered, some will say we had our best side out at Palace and look what happened there, however that was a freak result we need to put it behind us and drive forward. Having seen Be'er Sheva at the away game in Israel they are a well drilled unit but to be blunt they are not in a great league, we should be more than capable of getting what we need and marching on. So I want to see a packed St Mary's cheering on our first side to a confident and complete victory, I do not want to see excuses paraded at a post mortem, if I wanted to watch our second string I would go to the EFL Trophy games. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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