Saints look to make it 9 points out of 9 in their best start for 23 years.
Its all eyes on Nigel Adkins as he takes Saints to Portman Road aiming to push Saints back to the top of the Championship.
The big question will be whether he makes any changes from the starting line up at Barnsley with new signing Danny Fox in line for his debut, this is perhaps the litmus test for Adkins, having paid out a large sum for Fox, is he reactive and sit back and wait for Harding to make a mistake or is he proactive and put the new man in now, this s a position that he has rarely been in as a manager, so therefore we have no real precedents to compare with, my view is that having paid so much for the player, he has to back his own judgement and put him into the side sooner rather than later, good managers spot weaknesses and take steps to rectify them, having taken those steps they implement them, dropped points could cost us dearly come the end of the season. Football is a harsh game and managers have to make tough decisions, it would be harsh to drop Harding, he hasnt played badly in the opening two league fixtures, but Adkins has signed Fox for a reason.
Other than this change the only other one I would foresee is a possible start for Steve De Ridder, although I do consider this to be more of a long shot, Guly did well at Barnsley and given that Ipswich will be a tougher proposition than our opening two Championship games, Adkins will probably opt to stick with the formation that he knows.
There will be a change on the bench however, Richard Chaplow is definately out serving his suspension from Saturday, so that creates an opportunity, I would expect that to be filled by either Harding or Fox depending on the managers selections, although my concern in that would be a lack of striking power on the bench, ideally I would like to see Barnard making an appearance assuming he is fit.
As I have always maintained, Saints have the strength in depth and that strength is likely to get stronger over the next couple of weeks, but with new arrivals come big decisions for the manager and that is why he is key to our progress this season, for Nigel Adkins this is a key moment in his career and our success rests on how he takes this big opportunity.