Saints take on the Gunners looking to secure a victory over a Big Six club in the Premier League for the first time in 19 months, can they do it ?
The ast three games have seen a big swing in not only the mindset of the manager but also the spirit within the squad, Mauricio Pellegrino has seemingly learn't a few lessons and has now realised he has to play to the strengths of his squad rather than try to squeeze square pegs into round holes and hope it works out.
That gives hope that Saints can not only give Arsenal a game but beat them !
The core of the side seems to be back in place, that means two strong central defenders in Hoedt and Van Dijk and a strong central midfield with Romeu and Lemina with plenty of other options.
We just need a bit of luck to be with us now, we did not have that at Bournemouth where our only slip was punished, but the performances in each of our last three games may not have yielded much in points, but showed that we can take on any side and give them a game.
The other ood thing is that unlike last year when although Claude Pule chopped and changed, it was easy to read what he might do, now with Pellegrino it is a little different, he is starting to do a bit more than like for like in every game.
Therefore with Cedric Soares the only player likely to be missing, the big question is what he does at the back, will he play Jeremy Pied as he did at Bournemouth, or will he opt for a back three as he did at Manchester City.
The latter will be a bit more difficult to implement in this game as he won't have Soares and both he and Bertand were critical up at the Etihad in making it work as they had the engines to get up and down.
I do expect the central midfield duo to be Lemina and Romeu and then it is a question of whether he intends to take the game to Arsenal from the off, or keep it tight early doors and look to push on in the second half.
Certainly he will have plenty of options in the midfield, with Steven Davis, James Ward Prowse, Dusan Tadic, Nathan Redmond, Sofiane Boufal, Pierre Emile Hojbjerg all having staked claims in the last thre games for a place in the starting line up, not to mention the three front runners.
In terms of the forward play I would hope that Charlie Austin starts, he is the one single factor that can be put forward as to our revival in the past fortnight, he has provided an outlet for the balls into the box and it is no coincidence that the return to form of both Tadic and Redmond is due to the fact that Austin provides an outlet for them that they have not had all season.
This will be a tough game, but for the first time in 19 months I go into one of these games against a top six side with confidence that we are well capable of getting a result, a draw would be satisfactory given the tough run of games we have coming up, but a win would be a great springboard for the upcoming period.
If we can turn into the new year tucked in the same position that we are now then we will be well placed to kick on, we will have played five of the top six away from home and there won't be many others who will have got that many of the technically toughest games of the season out of the way at that stage.
There are still some good times to come from this team, stick with them, get behind them and enjoy what is still our most consistent period in terms of League position in our entire history.