Saints take on Everton with both sides looking to emulate their best ever Premier league finishes in a season.

For Saints its a case of getting back to winning ways and making sure that we dont let Newcastle or even Stoke City overhaul us in the final run in, a win at home to Everton would just about guarantee that, although a draw would see us limping towards the finish line, for Everton only a win will do, anything less than that and they face a mountain to climb to pip Arsenal to that Champions League spot, therefore the Toffee's will arrive at St Mary's with a do or die attitude.

This is all going to get predictable from now on, if we are going to win games then we have to do something different than we have in the past couple of games, yes we have lost Jay Rodriguez to injury, but really one player should not pose such a problem to our style of play and if it does and it clearly does as our last two games have shown with 70% possession in both but barely a decent chance, then we should be able to adapt.

We have a good basic shape so this should allow Mauricio Pochettino to throw in someone like Harrison Reed or Omar Rowe and give us that bit of attacking flair we have lacked since Jay Rod's injury, yes we could mix and match as we did against both Cardiff and Villa and we may get a result, but that is far from certain against an Everton side who have only lost six times in the League all season, their goals scored of only 21 on the road offers us hope in that this is lower than every other team in the top eight, however in reverse their goals conceded 18 is only bettered by Chelsea.

In short just the sort of team we struggle to break down, they keep it tight at the back and break quickly as they proved in the game at Goodison, we again did our usual trick of having the bulk of possession but we failed to capitalise on that whilst they scored with a trademark strike getting the ball to Lukaku who lost his marker.

So if we want to finish this season on a high we have to do something different, from that point of view we do have Gaston Ramirez back so we do have a bit of flair probably from the bench though.

This game is as tough as it gets all season, so far we have failed to beat many of the top half, our only two wins being against Liverpool and Newcastle, it is now a good time to make it three.

Photo: Action Images

ItchenNorth added 13:41 - Apr 25 I'd take a draw right now; just not another 0-0. Ricky really needs to step back up to the plate again or his season will end in two weeks and not in mid July in Brazil.
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Fordy added 13:51 - Apr 25 Agree that without Jayord we really are missing that person to run in behind defenders. Davis and Shaw were the only people to do this against Villa. If we are going to play JWP in place of Jayrod I would like to see JWP sitting and Morgan pushed up further but I doubt this will happen.
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Fordy added 13:51 - Apr 25 Agree that without Jayord we really are missing that person to run in behind defenders. Davis and Shaw were the only people to do this against Villa. If we are going to play JWP in place of Jayrod I would like to see JWP sitting and Morgan pushed up further but I doubt this will happen.
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Fordy added 13:51 - Apr 25 Agree that without Jayord we really are missing that person to run in behind defenders. Davis and Shaw were the only people to do this against Villa. If we are going to play JWP in place of Jayrod I would like to see JWP sitting and Morgan pushed up further but I doubt this will happen.
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Scummer added 15:25 - Apr 25 We always look the most dangerous when we are in the transition. As soon as we get to the point where we are camped in the opposition half and both sides have the right shape then we keep the possession but rarely look dangerous. We need to break quickly and incisively when we recover possession, make the runs into the channels and make sure the midfielders are looking to pick out those runs. It is frustrating to watch when a dangerous diagonal run has been made, but the player on the ball is looking for the safer pass sideways or backwards. Reminds me of David Batty!! And we also need to recover some of the pressing intensity we have back in the autumn. That seems to have lessened as the season goes on.

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simmo400 added 18:36 - Apr 25 I think a draw is th best we can hope for. They need the win and with their flair players we will be struggling.
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tiptop added 19:48 - Apr 25 Would like to see Omar Rowe and his pace involved but he doesn't seem to have trained with the 1st team squad for what ever reason. Reed is out with a cold. Ramirez and Spider out too. Jake Flannigan and Sam McQueen have been in 1st team training from what i can see. Agree with scummer and Nic. Saints need a freshen up and are crying out for more pace and skill down the middle.

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