Saints need to get back to basics with their tactics for the trip to Leicester City and that means square pegs in square holes.
In last weeks preview before the trip to Sunderland i suggested that Toby Alderweireld should be restored to the defence rather than played as a holding midfield player and i think that suggestion is even more relevant this week after we saw two penalties conceded as a result of sloppy play in central defence.
Football is a simple game and the trick is not to over complicate it especially when you have problems in certain areas, Saints of course are missing Fraser Forster in goal, that being the case we need to make sure we have our first choice defence in front of Kelvin Davis and in front of them a strong midfield, last week at the Stadium Of Light I feel we did neither and because of that we paid the price.
Hopefully Ronald Koeman has learnt his lesson and we will go back to putting square pegs in square holes and not trying to put them in round ones.
If we do that then i feel that we are going back to the solidarity we had defensively that we had a few months ago and that gives us something to build on.
In midfield I would like to see a central pairing of S Davis and Wanyama with Long and mane out wide, up front of course Pelle and in my mind I fee that perhaps Filipe Djuricic could slot in behind him after his encouraging second half display last week.
There are other options but with so many out with injury and suspension we still need to have options off the bench and although we have that it is a little limited.
But if we play this formation then I feel we ahve nothing to fear, yes leicester have been on a good run, but they are in the position they are in for good reason, yes they have dragged themselves clear, but they have done that on the back of playing and beating mainly the teams who were just above them rather than producing any truly shock results.
They are a good solid side and good enough to stay up, but as we know through our great escapes of the 1990's, ultimately if you are at the bottom you cannot keep winning runs going indefinitely .
So this is our chance to get our own form back on track and in doing so cement 7th place and hopefully look to try and get up to sixth.
That is very achievable and our brilliant season up to a month or so ago has lead to a wave of pessimism creeping in to Saints support, we need to put that to one side and concentrate on the task ahead and the fact that we are like Leicester, in a league position for a good reason and that is our quality and form.
We should fear no one, put out our best team and that is the case !