Could this be the most important game of the season for Saints as they look to pull out of the freefall of the past few weeks.
When I wrote at the start of December that this month would shape the season, little did i know how spectacularly we would collapse, in truth we failed to heed the warning signs of November when we revelled in a couple of home victories but didnt really give credence to the fact that both Fulham & Hull had poor away records, the message coming out of St Mary's was boastful in nature and it was setting us up for a fall.
So we head up to Cardiff knowing this is our best chance of winning a game out of the next three, the only trouble is with the goings on at The Bluebirds or Red Dragons or whatever they are now called, the atmosphere on Boxing Day could either make them unbeatable or cause them to crumble.
Team selection will be vital, I have said many times that we should not blame the fringe players for the downturn in form, their only crime is to pull on a Saints shirt and try their best, the past six months, nay eighteen months have seen us fail to improve the squad to the level it should have been, we have spent big, but when you are looking at over £30 million pounds worth of players who have come in and added little, the blame for our form does not lay at the feet of Danny Fox, Jos Hooiveld or Paulo Gazzaniga, it lays with whoever was responsible for buying the likes Vegard Forren, Mayuka and Gaston Ramirez and I could mention more.
Having said all this I fee that the doom and gloom showed by some supporters is not as founded as they claim, the players who have come in have won points for Saints both this season and last and in some tough games as well, perhaps those who hate Danny Fox so much would do well to remember when we beat Man City last season, this highlights that if you get behind a player then he can raise his game, if you get on his back then his game will deterioate, there is a lesson to be learnt here and a sizable minority havent learnt it yet.
So what we need up in Wales is a display in the manner of what we used to get from Saints teams over the years when they find themselves in adversity, that is a rolling up of the sleeves and a battling performance that gets a win that turns a season.
If we lose at Cardiff then its hard to see how we can beat Everton away or Chelsea at home, morale will hve sunk even further.
For Mauricio Pochettino its a big game too, the press that were acclaiming him only a few weeks ago and were mentioning him as a possible Spurs manager are now suggesting that he is a one trick pony, that he can play only one way and when that style is compromised he doesnt have a plan B.
The last six games have certainly given food for thought for that, and its now down to the Saints boss to show that they are wrong.
What Pochettino needs to do now is get back to basics, get square pegs in square holes, this means either play Rickie Lambert as the central striker or dont play him at all, harsh, but no reflection on Rickie's ability, he is a player who can play in one way, he excels in that style, but you would no more play Luke Shaw as centre forward than Rickie as a wide man. Throwing on Sam Gallagher on Sunday was worrying, the manager was gambling, we had three centre forwards on the pitch, yet we rarely got a cross into the box against a Spurs keeper who was flapping.
When things arent going right for a team, the players want to know where they should play and keep it simple, they dont want revolving systems or complicated tactical formations, its get back to basics and then you can impose fancy play when you are winning games.
Lose to Cardiff and you have to be starting to think that the manager could be on stony ground, he is on the worse run of any Saints boss since the arrival of Nicola Cortese, given his comments in the past, you have to wonder if he will continue to keep faith with the manager.
I hope he does, I really like the way that Pochettino puts out teams, I want him to show us that he does have a plan B, that we can turn it around and we can do things differently, many Saints fans ar now facing up to the reality that we could be lucky to finish in the top 10 let alone the top 5, hopefully the Chairman will do the same and accept that sometimes progress is not as swift as all involved would like.
The two players everyone will be looking at will be Jose Fonte,is he injured or is there some other issue, similarly Osvaldo, if those two are back in the starting line up then perhaps there is hope, if they arent then the whispers will start to get louder.
Saints are not a club in crisis, at least not yet, however they are now exactly the same number of points from the bottom three as they are the top three, we cannot afford another six games as the last half dozen.