The Nigel Pearson era starts at Scunthorpe

Saints go to Scunthorpe in what is not quite a must win game, but is certainly a "Must not lose", defeat would drag Saints firmly into the relegation dogfight, whilst a win would start to banish those worries away.

The problem is, and we know this from experience, that its often the sides at the bottom that fine the impetus at this time of the season whilst others drop like a stone.

However Saints and their supporters should take stock of the true situation before presssing the panic button. Whilst it cant be denied that saints League form has been woeful, only 1 win in the last 12 league games, we have to realsie that there have been extenuating circumstances behind that.

Firstly there has been the managerial situation, lets be blunt, Burley wasnt doing a good job before his departure and D & G did an even worse one after he had left, but it is still basically the same squad that only four weeks ago was on the fringes of the promotion race and would still be thereabouts but for the disaster of the last six games.

But we now have a new manager and hopefully after seeing the disaster that was the starting line up picked by Dodd & Gorman on Tuesday will now have a clearer picture as to what is needed with team selection for this important game.

He has to build on a strong defence and in truth he has got it and then we have to go back to basics in midfield and upfront, the formation favoured by our previous management which some would claim as a 4-3-3, but in reality is more of a 4-5-1 has to be abandoned, the players seem confused by it and when your loan striker is Stern John, a player who will only move for three reasons, the first being that the ball is played into the six yard box and the other two concerning leaving the pitch at the end of each half, the fact is it just doesnt work.

When things are going badly you put out a 4-4-2 formation that everyone understands and when you have that in place you work out who deserves to be in on merit.

In goal there is no question that Davis deserves his place at the moment, in the back four if everyone is fit I would go for Ostlund, Thomas, Davies and Vignall, in midfield its a little more tricky as this is a real problem area, but all things being equal, Viafara and Idiakez in the centre with Surman on the left and Hammill on the right would be the best that we could put out at present, up front I would start with John and Saganowski.

On the bench its a little more tricky, assuming Bialkowski in goal, I would then have Euell, Wright, BWP, Mcgoldrick and Lallana, a good balance geared towards attack.

Scunthorpe will see this as a must win game and sometimes this can work against you, the pressure is on and can prove too much.

Saints seem to be better away from home at present, the first half at Stoke was a disaster but the second an improvement, but before that this was a side that went to Palace, Plymouth and Barnsley in their previous three league away games and earned a point in each, some would say that in at least two of them it should have been all three, if we can replicate that away form then we can get at least a point and maybe more.

With 13 games left and Saints on 38 points, realistically we need three wins to assure survival, that would mean a minimum of 47 points and that being the case we would be likely to pick up a few draws along the way to take us over the 50 point mark that most would concur is the guaranteed safety margin

A look at last seasons table shows Southend the third from bottom club on 42 points, in truth this is a low amount, you would expect a point a game in a relegation battle to be the bench mark between staying up and going down, therefore I would expect 47 points to be enough to avoid relegation.

But we dont want to have a worrying last couple of months, we want to get the job done as quickly as possible and then we can start the post mortems on this season, the Daily Echo was right in its editorial last night, we need to get behind the team, booing individual players helps no one, we have to get behind the players and cheer them to safety and for those going to Scunthorpe remember, save the critiscism and protests for ST Mary's, when we are away lets show the opposition that we have the best away support in the division, we have proved that on many occasions so far lets keep doing it.          

Photo: Action Images

Arsenal Polls