In what is probably the strangest of our pre season fixtures we take on Wolverhampton Wanderers at St Mary's in our penultimate home friendlies.

Many Saints supporters have expressed wonder as to why we lined up four home pre season friendlies this summer, over the years we have usually restricted it to one, although starting four years ago when we were in financial woe we did increase the number in that year, purely to try and keep some much needed income coming in.

But now we certainly dont need to make any money from these games and its hard to see how some of them and this one in particular really fit in with our pre season preparation, in these days when actual match practice before the season starts is not the priority it once was.

So we have the visit of Wolves in what is most definately the strangest of our pre season quartet of games at St Mary's, whereas the other three to varying degrees had some sort of attraction to supporters, this fixture against a side who even when in the premier where not a big draw, seems to be  little bit of a white elephant in our pre season programme, the worry is if Ajax can only draw a crowd in the mid 5K's to SMS, Wolves will be a lot lot less.

The number of pre season friendlies and the cost involved of attending them has meant a lot of supporters have been saving their money for the prices in the Premier League for our away fixtures.

On the pitch with a fortnight and still another two pre season friendlies to fit in during that time, Nigel Adkins will probably replicate the squad rotation of the previous games both at home and in France and concentrate on trying out most of his players and possibly a couple of formations, perhaps this is why we are playing so many pre season fixtures ? Adkins is aware that to play the solid 4-4-2 that we employed in every game last season would be putting us on dodgy ground in the Premier where you need to have to be able to vary the formation to suit not only the opposition, but whatever stage a game might be in, at various times, from this angle perhaps we need a large number of friendlies to accamitise the players.

So bring on the Wolves, for those that enjoy analysing a game and the tactics this might be an enjoyable afternoon, sadly I dont think there will be too many there.        

Photo: Action Images

reidmail added 13:54 - Aug 4 What a one eyed view ! Not a big draw !? Wolves have one of the biggest away following in ANY division, but playing a smaller southern team, that only just about scrapped their way up last season will test even them ! I personally hate "friendlies", how any club can charge an admission fee for a training session is beyond me. Please stop talking as if you are "Real Southampton" and you might get a bit more respect. Good luck.

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SaintCatch added 19:42 - Aug 4 Nick, i have total respect for this site and always check tui first. But i think this article is disrespectful and narrow minded! We all have are off days mate! It was a good 90 mins of Footy today look forward to the season. Saints to I die!
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SaintNick added 09:42 - Aug 5 Reidmail, I didnt mean to be disrespctful because im well aware that we arent Real Southampton, I was putting the game in context where we have four home friendlies instead of the usual one or two at most and that this one was the least glamorous of the four, usually most football clubs, Wolves included im sure will look to play friendlies at home against teams that are above them in the pecking order to try and attract fans to the game, I note your comments about your away following, but people dont pay good money to see away folowings they do so to see good players and at the moment we are above you in the pecking order, it may be for one season I dont know. SaintCatch, same thing as above, I wasnt trying to disrespect Wolves but point out that our pres season programme was a bit crowded, I think I probably proved my point with the crowd being less than 4,000 and he probably proved his with 400 of them being wolves fans

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