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Southampton V Leicester City The Preview

Saints try to make it 4 straight league games when they take on Leicester at St Mary's, the Foxes themselves are unbeaten in 3 after drawing 1 and then winning their last 2 outings, does something have to give or will it end up all square.

Southampton will be looking to draw level with Leicester in the Championship table as 16th take on 10th, but with only 3 points between them, if Saints do win by a single goal they will jump above the East Midlands club on goals scored as then goals scored will come into play, a two goal margin or more will take us above them on goal difference.

Both sides will go into it with confidence, Leicester have found their form again after beating Norwich away from home followed by the weekend's win over 3rd placed Stoke City.

Before that though they had won just once in 10 League outings, drawing 6 and losing 3.

Confidence and the hopes are high in the Southampton camp after Saturday's win over Charlton though and a rejuvenated team and indeed supporter base will be looking for more of the same.

Tonda Eckert would seem to have only one decision to make from his starting XI up in South East London, does he continue with Cameron Bragg who had a great full debut against Charlton, or will he prefer the experience of Flynn Downes.

The only other change in the squad would be that Ryan Fraser is down with an illness so does not look likely to take his place on the bench, however there are plenty of candidates to replace him, but the fans would love to see Oriol Romeu in a Saints shirt again, even if he is only on the bench and that could be the case, his experience could be useful in the closing stages.

All eyes will be on the manager, a little over 3 weeks ago after the sacking of Will Still and the announcement that Tonda Eckert would be the interim manager, there were those that expressed concern that the German was being lined up as Still's replacement, many thought and indeed still do, that after over 3 years of managerial turmoil, that now is the time for experience in the dug out.

However it cannot be denied that Eckert has been a breath of fresh air, in just 3 games he has rejuvenated a team that was clearly lacking confidence, composure, stability, motivation and organisation and perhaps more.

He has slowly but surely in just 3 weeks turned a disorganised rabble into a well drilled unit and in doing so he has pushed himself into the running for the job.

But there are still questions whether it could be a flash in the pan or not, yes 3 straight wins is something that has rarely been achieved in the last decade, but is it a honeymoon period that could soon turn sour, is it just a reaction from the squad of relief that Still and his scattergun approach is gone, or is it truly that Tonda Eckert truly has something, after all everyone has to start somewhere.

The general consensus was that the judgment would be made after 3 games, but with the success of the first two , it's now pushed to five, if Eckert can steer his team to victory tonight then he would surely be on the verge of being appointed and if he followed that up with a win at Millwall it would be rubber stamped.

But lets not get too carried away, the reality is that a draw tonight would be a satisfactory result against a team who start the evening just a point off the play offs, lets be blunt 3 weeks ago we would have taken 3 wins & a draw out of the first 4 games after Still's sacking.

Sadly it does not look like it will be anywhere near a full house tonight, as of this afternoon around 3,000 tickets are available in the home sections, add to that the fact that although Leicester will bring good support, I would be surprised if they have sold the full allocation and that it is live on TV, unless there is a big walk up tonight, I would be surprised to see much more than 27,000 in attendance.

But the home Saints support will make a lot of noise to get behind their team as they did at Charlton on Saturday, all we can do is firstly keep the unbeaten run going and secondly keep winning games.

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