Saints need to break a bad league run going back nearly 18 years if they want to keep their promotion run going.
Saints havent met Swindon that often in the league in the past 45 years or so up untl last season, but after three straight 1-0 league defeats added to a 2-1 loss in 93/94 at the County Ground in the premier, Saints now need a repeat of the home game that season when they stuffed Swindon 5-1 at the Dell.
The past six games have seen Saints form slump, only nine points from those games has meant an average of only 1.5 per game as opposed to the 2 that we really need if we seriouslt want automatic promotion, but perhaps the most worrying stat is Saints failure to score in half of those games and Nigel Adkins has some serious thinking to do.
If Saints can beat the hoodoo then we need to learn from it, at home we are usually good enough, but then we face another difficult run of three out of four games on the road.
The blunt fact is though if we struggle again against the Robins then we have a serious problem in the club, Swindon have won only twice away, drawn four and lost nine the joint worst record in the division alongside Notts County, although County have played three games less, Swindon have also conceded 34 goals averaging over two a game although Saints need to be careful as they have notched 24, only two short of Saints themselves.
Its in some respects a no win situation for Saints, a win is expected and could create a another false dawn, though anything less will be a major setback, sadly in the last Month Saints have slipped up and havent notched the number of points that they should have, if they had maintained the two point average the league would look so much different. But by the time Saints leave Bournemouth in a little over two weeks they should know by then if automatic promotion is a pipe dream or a real possibility.
Its another weekend where Saints have to win and hope their rivals slip up, the Cherries travel to Dagenham and redbridge who showed they can do Saints a favour on Tuesday by holding Huddersfield, we need them to do it again, Huddersfield host Orient who hopefully will be buoyed by their cup exploits, whilst Charlton face a trip to Notts County, Peterborough go to Oldham and MK Dons host Brighton, so its a weekend where some sides around us have to drop points whilst others have potential banana skins.
But first off Saints have to win,, my worry after hartlepool is that Nigel Adkins doesnt seem to know what to do when plan A doesnt come off, apart from bringing on Lee Barnard he doesnt seem to have a plan B, I would like to see Barnard start on Saturday alongside Guly.
My team would show several changes from that at Hartlepool.
Davis
Butterfield, Jaidi, Forte, Dickson
OXO Schneiderlin, Chaplow, Lallana
Barnard, Guly.
Subs, Shea, Martin, Richardson Gobern, Hammond, Lambert, N'Guessan, Harding.
(Ok thats eight subs, Im tepted to leave off Harding but I feel that would be a little harsh, so i would probably omit Martin for the simple reason that Adkins seems to have no intention of playing him whatever the situation, if a central defender got injured we should be quite capable of improvising against Swindon)
To be blunt after six games where we have struggled to score in every one accept Peterborough it is time to freshen things up, the manager now has to start to manage and show everyone he is up to the task of making difficult decisions.
Saints should win this one and should win it well, but we have seen too many false dawns, if we do win lets not just let it paper over the cracks.