Saints head to Bramall Lane to take on Sheffield United who are likely to be with Danny Ings in their side for only the second time this season, can we build on the performance against Middlesbrough and get back to winning ways.
Saints supporter including me, who would have welcomed the return of Danny Ings to St Mary’s will perhaps sad to note that the ex Saint who left in controversial circumstances 4 years ago has only played 12 minutes football for the Blades this season coming on as a sub only days after joining the club on 27th August he has been out ever since with injury.
However he is no set to return against his former club this evening.
He is more likely to start on the bench than anything else, so Saints would do well to get this game out of sight earlydoors.
The big question though is whether Will Still will keep complete faith with the side he put out on Saturday, perhaps the main talking point being whether Alex McCarthy keeps his place, Gavin Bazunu has had his critics but it was a big surprise when he was dropped for McCarthy against Boro.
Especially since McCarthy had gifted Liverpool their opening goal in the League cup tie on Tuesday evening.
On Saturday against Boro he had little to do, he had just one shot to save and didn’t exactly distinguish himself with that by allowing the ball to go past him without an attempt to save it, yes it was a deflection but you would expect a goalkeeper at this level to at least react in some way.
But other than that I would not expect to see many changes, Saints were comfortable for mos of the game on Saturday and will Francy their chances against a rock bottom Sheffield United side.
The truth is we have to get this season going, the jury is very much out on Will Still so far and he has struggled to find any pattern to the play of his team and that has not been good, against Boro he got the starting line up right, but the seemed to make changes that upset the rhythm of the side and cost us the equaliser, like Russell Martin sometimes he tries to be a little bit too clever.
So with a run of poor results behind him he has to get back to winning ways, we have no leeway with tonight’s game for anything else than a win.
So tonight is a biggie, we need a season changing performance, we need to get ourselves back up with the chasing pack for promotion and then keep that run going as we did two years ago.
Will Still has to find his team’s identity, indeed he has to find his won identity as a manager, Russell Martin and Graham Potter are two examples at the moment who not so long ago were promising managers being looked at as managing top sides going forward, now both of them have reputations in tatters.
Adam restring is the key tonight, a goal in each of the last two games, he looked back to his best as he was two years ago.