There are not many grounds that Saints travel to in the Premier League where we have a worse record on than Everton's Goodison Park and that needs to change on Saturday.
Saints have never enjoyed visiting Goodison Park, back in 1971 we were drubbed there 8-0, 6-1 in 1986 and in November 1996 we lost 7-1 in another eight goal thriller, well at least for Everton supporters.
This will be our 16th visit in the Premier League and in that time we have had 11 defeats, 3 draws and only 1 win out of the 15 trips to Goodison so far.
That solitary win came back in 1996/97 when a superb Kevin Davies solo goal to add to a Le Tissier effort in the first half gave us a 2-0 win, apart from that a 0-0 draw in May 1995, a 1-1 draw in October 2001 when Jason Dodd gave us a lead only to see Michael Ball score from the spot in the 81st minute followed by a 0-0 draw on October 2003 are the only other results that we have achieved there.
Our record there in the Old First division was not much better after that 8-0 reverse ironically we won our next two visits although the 3-0 win in April 1974 was hollow as it was the day we were relegated.
Our next trip on our return to the top flight in 1978 saw a 0-0 draw, but that was a as good as it got as usually we returned empty handed apart from the odd draw and it would be 1991/92 before our first win since 1974 and ironically our last meeting in the Old First Division before the Premier League started in August 1992, that night Glenn Cockerill scored the only goal of the night on Wednesday April 1st 1992 exactly 23 years to the day I write this.
So this appalling record has to change if Saints are to achieve their aims for this season, in truth for most of the past two decades or so Everton have been a decent side and although not challenging for the league title have been a top ten side for much of the last dozen years or so.
But there has never been a better time for Saints to beat the Toffee's on their own turf, this looks like being a rare season when we have finished above Everton in the Premier League, we have an opportunity here against a side with nothing to play for, we have to turn the screw and gain our first victory on Goodison Road in almost 19 years.
Perhaps the Everton fans will be wanting us to win as well, if Liverpool have lost or drawn at Arsenal in the lunchtime kick off a Saints win would see us leapfrog the Reds into 5th place and that would probably make the Blue half of Merseyside just as happy as us for a Saints win.
This has been a season that has seen us win a lot of away games, indeed there are many who would say we are better set up to play away from home than we are at St Mary's, but this is a season that has also seen us win at Manchester United and Arsenal as well albeit the latter was a Capital One Cup tie, so there is a precedent for us to break a hoodoo or two that has haunted us for many a year.
But we are now in a fight to the finish in the Premier league and there is no more room for error, we need to win and need to win well and for once when talking about a trip to Goodison Park there is no reason why we shouldn't.