Saints travel to Teeside needing a comprehensive win against a side already relegated for several important reasons.
With Middlesbrough already heading back to the Championship, Saints have to win this game and win it well for more than one reason.
The first is League position, a win could propel Saints into 8th place and with a good chance of holding on to it, whilst a defeat could not only see us slip out of the top ten again and lower, but could leave us struggling to scrape into the top 15.
That means in terms of League position a win is essential and it could also see us virtually secure that top 10 finish if the teams around us drop points themselves.
The second reason why three points are essential is for the manager himself, the stark reality of this season is that he has not performed to the standards that were expected when he came to the club last summer, the squad is good enough to have achieved a lot more, that has been shown on all too rare occasions, but the inconsistency of this season has to be down to the manager who has chopped and changed and in doing so confused the hell out of supporters and players alike and removed any sort of pecking order on the pitch based on form.
Should Saints be beaten at Boro then it is hard to see the board keeping faith with the manager, indeed it is hard to see that Puel could return to St Mary's in charge for Wednesday's game against Manchester United let alone for the final game against Stoke.
With season ticket sales slow, the board know that they have to make a point to the supporters and they need to do it quickly and decisively.
Back to the game and it is anybody's guess what formation that the Frenchman will play, of late it has been an attacking one, but just putting four attacking players into the three spaces available, does not increase your scoring power, it merely serves to make the team disjointed and not sure what they are doing.
There are too many players in the squad that have gripes with the manager for the way he has treated them, some have been public but others more speculative, but there is clearly something wrong with the squad's team spirit.
But the squad is good enough to win this game if it can find the spirit to go out there and play in spite of Puel and not because of him.
Boro are the lowest scoring side in the Premier League and that should allow us to commit men forward when we attack, something we have been unable to do of late because of the need to keep so many behind the ball to stop us being murdered on the counter attack.
But Boro do not concede many either, in terms of goals against they are in the top half of the League as we found out at St Mary's when it took a Sofiane Boufal wonder goal to win the game.
The key will be to score early and then draw them out and catch them on the break, the reality at the moment is that we offer little from corners and set pieces due to a lack of height in the team , so we are going to have to score from open play.
So a big game for Saints and one we have to win, a top ten finish for the fourth consecutive year would be a first for the club and would be a good achievement, but defeat could see Bournemouth jump above us and be hard to overhaul.
That would highlight to the board just how badly Puel has fared this season, it cannot be denied that Saints squad is bigger, better and stronger than our neighbours from across the New Forest, but the issue is that in Eddie Howe they have a manager who knows about running a football squad and keeping things simple and tight and in doing that he has got the Cherries to the lofty heights of this season.
Without being patronising, we have managed to keep above them so far due to the fact that we have a better team, but it is badly run and should really not have let them or at least half a dozen teams within sight of us now.
All those stupid dropped points against the likes of Sunderland at home Burnley away etc are now coming back to haunt us.
If we win I don't think it will ultimately save Puel's job, even a three game winning burst to the end of the season might not be enough for that.
With regards to team selection, we all know what it will be apart from perhaps one place, that tells you all you need to know.