Yet another cup final in the last chance saloon
A week ago Alan pardew described the game at Brighton as the most difficult of the run in, I can only assume his tongue was firmly in his cheek as Brighton's home record was only better than Wycombe & Stockport, two clubs we couldnt beat away either.
But tomorrow's game against Charlton Athletic could genuinely be described as our most difficult (Although dont discount Bristol Rovers & Gillingham, The Gills have a home record only 2 points worse than Leeds and 4 than Charlton) The Valiants have only been beaten 4 times on the road although they are let down a little by drawing (8) as many as they win.
The day will start to sort the wheat from the chafe in what is almost certainly Saints most crucial of the season and will see them knowing by 5pm next Saturday whether promotion is a reality or all over, the first step though is to beat Charlton & hope that Huddersfield dont win at Brentford.
For this game Alan Pardew needs to take the bull by the horns and realise that Saints can outscore any side, when we do this as we did at Wembley we are the best side in the division, but all too often as was shown in the second half against Orient and at Brighton we show sides too much respect, on Monday we took off a forward and reverted to 4-5-1 when there was absolutely no reason to do so, especially against a side with such a terrible away record, we have to make sides fear us, not show them too much respect and give them impetus.
Charlton are obvioulsy a much different proposition than Orient, but in two games so far this season we have not lost to them and in truth we should have beaten them away from home, dominating a game in which they only got back in it due to a goalkeeping error and when we didnt try and win it till it was too late.
Charlton have seen their automatic promotion push falter in recent weeks and like us know that only a win is good enough, however Saints are a better side than Charlton, the only difference has been consistency which we have never really found this season, going from great to abysmal from game to game.
I wouldnt expect too many surprises in Pardew's starting 11, the game will be won by substitutions, if Pardew gets them right then we will win, if he gets them wrong as he did on Monday then it could be a problem.
There is only one outcome for Saints in this match, anything less than a win and the feint promotion hopes are gone, especially if Huddersfield beat Brentford. However we havent fired on all cylinders for a few games now (Wembley aside), so this could be just the time to start hitting form