Saints travel to Anfield to face surprise table toppers Liverpool, but they can spring a surprise if Mauricio Pochettino gets his tactics right.
In recent games Saints boss Mauricio Pochettino has played an attacking formation, that has been in part due to his attempting to fit in both Rickie Lambert and Osvaldo into the same side, in truth the results have not been successful in that not only have the team not been scoring goals, but the high tempo, high pressing game that worked so well in the early part of Pochettino's reign seems to have been sacrificed in order to keep both players in the side.
Football players are creatures of simple habits, they like to know what the formation is and what they should be doing in that formation, last season and indeed going further back under Nigel Adkins, Saints game plans were simple and at any given time players knew where they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to be doing, indeed when under pressure they knew just where to put the ball knowing someone would more than likely be under it.
But this season things have changed since the arrival of Osvaldo and the system has been affected by the age old problem of fitting in a big name signing at the expense of another player, especially when the player who is being replaced is your star striker, that has seen the system changing.
In short the tactics employed in the past two & a half games seem to be one of rotation, at any given time you are never sure who will be up front and who will be dropping deep, Osvaldo and Lambert are two very different types of striker, but ultimately they both will want to go for the same ball rather than complimenting each other, in the past Lamert has worked with a partner up front at Saints, but that partner be it Lee Barnard, Billy Sharp or Tadanari Lee has always been of a different type and therefore complimentary to Rickie in that they want to play off a big striker rather than chase the same balls, now that has changed.
The difficulty is of course that in Osvaldo you have a big name signing who has to be played to justify his price tag whatever the words about different levels and Champions league etc, there are few clubs in the Premier League who can afford to splash out the type of fee we paid for Osvaldo and leave him on the bench for an extended period, this was shown in the ruthless treatment of Jack Cork a player who has gone from being perhaps our most vital player last season or at least one of them, to not even being able to get a place on the bench, Cork is finding that like Sharp last season, when a new player comes in, in direct competition to you, it seems to be the policy to make sure that there can be no chance of supporters calling for the new man to be replaced by the old.
But with Lambert its different, when Saints started to chase a new striker in the summer, Lambert on paper was being replaced at the right time, however by the time Osvaldo arrived Lambert was no longer a player well into his 30's who hadn't scored much of late, but England's centre forward and the hero of the nation, the goalposts had changed and even Pochettino could not just discard the England centre forward, but conversely for more than one reason he needed to play Osvaldo.
Hence we have had this new system that has seen both accommodated, but it has been at the expense of what has been a well worked system, yes perhaps the writing has been on the wall for some time, after all Saints only scored 3 goals in the last 6 games of last season, but this season we just don't be creating the chances as we did last and that has seen us score only twice in 4 games, one a penalty and the other a late header from a dead ball situation from a centre half, use any excuse you like, but the answer is still the same and it isn't good enough.
So now Saints travel to Anfiled and league leaders Liverpool, yet I feel confident that we can get something out of it, even win, however to do so something has to change, indeed if it doesn't then Pochettino is a very brave man to go there with so many attacking players in the formation, in short he now has the excuse to go back to his preferred formation, one that he has used throughout his managerial career, not just at St Mary's.
If he reverts to playing the lone striker role and puts square pegs in square holes in midfield then believe that like last season, playing the likes of Liverpool will suit us better than playing the likes of West Ham.
But the manager now has to show leadership, in truth the lone striker at Anfield should be Osvaldo, he is more mobile up front than Lambert, however we all know Rickie is a big Liverpool fan and OK he is professional and if he were to be dropped he would take it on the chin, but it is not like dropping him at say Aston Villa or the like, this will be a big blow to him and will upset him a lot more, not to mention the damage it might do to his England chances.
But if the manager makes the tough decisions and gets in players in the midfield who can graft and get behind the ball, then we can perhaps sneak a surprise, Swansea showed last night that if you do this you can hurt Liverpool, run at them and they are vunerable, we need to do this, but we also have to be able to defend and that is why including both Rickie and Osvaldo could be a dangerous game to play.
Its time for Mauricio Pochettino to show he is the man to take Saints to the next level by making some tough decisions, if he does so then I think we can prove over the next few weeks that we have the basis of a good squad, but in the Premier League its all about being able to adapt to different situations and to be blunt Satuirday's trip to Anfield is far different and far tougher than our opening four fixtures.