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Saints At Chelsea The Preview
Sunday, 1st Dec 2013 10:40

A game where depending on the results in the earlier games, Saints could be playing for as high as second place or could be as low as eighth by the end of the day.

I said last week that December would be a month of destiny for Saints and that by the end of the month we would truly know the direction of the season, however on the very first day of the month Saints have a day where by 6pm this evening the Sky Sports pundits could be hailing us as the future of English football as we sit proudly in 2nd place after beating Chelsea, or they could be dismissing us as a flash in the pan who have had their 15 minutes in the sun and are now going to drop back into the mid table also rans.

Ironically Chelsea themselves have been dismissed by many this season and Saints fans hopes will be pinned on two out of their last three games where they not only lost to Newcastle but in their last home game only scraped a draw with West Brom courtesy of a dodgy late penalty, because of that it now falls to Saints to try and become the first team to inflict a defeat at Stamford Bridge on Chelsea under Jose Mourinho.

But although Chelsea are coming under fire from certain quarters, a look at the League table tells you they are still a force to be reckoned with, sitting third this morning before the round of games, if they beat us, they themselves have a good chance of going second and that should send a warning to potential top six sides like ourselves and Newcastle, that the old guard is starting to warm to the task.

What could cost Saints this season though is our away record, so far 2 wins, 2 draws & 2 defeats is average at best for what we are looking to do, but more worryingly is the trend for us to dominate games yet be toothless in attack, in our six games on our travels we have enjoyed 50% or more possession in all of them, our shots on goal has been good, yet our actual goal tally totals only 4 goals, one of them a penalty, two almost identical from corners and only one from open play.

This has to be addressed, those who have witnessed these games will tell you the same story, teams are happy to let us pass it around on the half way line, but bluntly we dont create enough chances in open play, we have the ability to retain posssesion, but too many of our shots are actually from distance and going nowhere, away from home we do not have an outlet for all our possession.

So for today's game at Chelsea Mauricio Pochettino may not have many decisions to make regarding his team selections, assuming everyone is fit, but he does have some important ones to make regarding our inability to turn possession into real chances and in turn those chances into goals, he surely cannot be happy with the situation, Im sure everyone will have their own views on the subject and im sure some will claim I have an agenda against certain players etc, but that is not the case, im just pointing out some hard facts regarding possession, real chances created and goals scored in open play, nothing more sinister than that.

So for our manager he has to decide whether to keep doing the same thing or make changes, in simple terms think he really only has two choices and that is to play Lambert or to play Osvaldo, the case for Lambert is strong, certainly at home he has been well worth his place and if we were indeed at St Mary's today then there would be no question of him playing, but away from home its a different story, however when Osvaldo was preferred against Manchester United at Old Trafford, he did not exactly put in a good performance and although he does offer more mobility than Lambert, he didn't show it up at United and added to that the fact he hasn't played much lately its not exactly a no brainer for Pochettino.

So its likely the Argentinian will stick with what he knows for the trip to Stamford Bridge, or will he surprise us.

So for Saints this will be a tough game, if we have everyone fit then we have a good chance of getting a draw, perhaps more, but we will need to do what in the main we have to make sure that we keep it tight and dont allow them to go on the break and punish us.

Make no bones about it, a draw wont be good for our league position in that we would at best hold 7th place and leapfrog Newcastle on goal difference, but it would keep us right up there and put us in good stead for the two home games in the next six days.

December will be tough and it will be about taking the points that we should take and then picking up a few more where we arent expected to.

Photo: Action Images



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