It hasnt been a happy hunting ground lately, but Saints are hoping their luck might change at Hillsborough
In our last visit Saints tamely lost 2-0 in a defeat which saw the lid put on the coffin but not quite hammering the nails in to our relegation to league 1, but this was a better result than in November 2007 when we crashed 5-0, perhaps best remembered by the travelling support for the conjuring tricks of Kelvin Davis who mysteriously seemd able to pass a solid object, a football through his body on several occasions, prompting abuse from the Saints fans and a gesture towards them.
Its never been a good ground for Kelvin for Saints, the previous season we drew 3-3 after leading 3-1 with Owls keeper Mark Crossley heading home in the six yard box in injury time to claim a point.
But we did win their in our first season after relegation from the premiership, a Kenwynne Jones goal seperating the sides.
On Saturday Saints need to start to turn their season around, Nigel Adkins has had two weeeks to work with the side and after two games should now have an idea about what his best side is, personally I think it should resemble the side that finished against Colchester rather than the one that started.
In defence I would restore Arron Martin if he is fit and would aso put in Ryan Dickson instead of Harding, in midfield we have plenty of options wide but little in the centre and therefore i think Schneiderlin and Hammond will have to be retained, Hammond is a better player than he has shown of late, so hopefuilly he will now start to show it otherwise perhaps the loan market beckons for Saints.
Out wide i would perhaps not risk Holmes despite his performance last weekend, with a game at yeovil on Tuesday i would use him sparingly and stick with Chamberlain on one side and Puncheon.
Up front of course the options are limited.
But Wednesday are on as bad a run as us and have lost the last three games after a good start, there is talk that former Saints Jon Otsemobor might make his debut for them at right back, now we know he is not all that good defensively and perhaps that might be there weak point and an area we can exploit.
Perhaps the main target though will be to score, not just because it will be a club record six consecutive games if we dont, but because we need to start hitting the net to regain our confidence, the last 20 mins against Colchester showed that we are starting to find our shooting range again, but we need to score and fast before it becomes a burden.
Whatever anybody says the sacking of Pardew took the stuffing out of the squad, those at Bristol Rovers saw a side who perhaps sensed their manager was for the chop and showed solidarity with him in the manner of their performance, subsequent games showed they were shell shocked, a full week with Adkins though should have cleaned out the cobwebs and there are now no excuses, the players for themselves now need to show the rest of league 1 why they were promotion favourites.
A win at wednesday followed by one at yeovil would change the season around and set us up nicely for two home games in a row, of course this is the dream ticket, however from the two road trips four points would be a good basis and a point at Wednesday is a good start towards that.