| Millwall 3 v 2 Southampton EFL Championship Saturday, 29th November 2025 Kick-off 15:00 |  |
Southampton At Millwall The Preview Thursday, 27th Nov 2025 19:08 Saints travel to South East London for the second time in a week hoping for a repeat of the performance at Charlton Athletic, but Millwall who will start the weekend in 4th place will be a tougher challenge than any of our 4 wins in a row so far. Saints are on a high and the supporters are pinching themselves to see if it isn't all just a dream and we will wake up soon. But it is real and Tonda Eckert has worked wonders with a squad that was low on organisation and confidence , by just keeping it simple and the players are almost unrecognisable from 4 weeks ago. But to put it in perspective we travel to Millwall only 4 points behind them and they are not in great form, they sneaked a late winner at home to Sheffield Wednesday on Wednesday evening and last weekend lost at Portsmouth 3-1. Indeed their recent form has not been great, that win over the Owls was their only victory in their last 5 league outings, losing 2 and drawing 2 in that run of games.
In the last two games Tonda Eckert has managed the game superbly, not just in the way he has got the games won and made sure they stayed lost, but in the way he has made thoughtful substitutions that have conserved the energy of key players and made sure they didn't get injuries late in the game. Hopefully that will stand us in good stead on Saturday and the size and quality of our squad will hopefully be a big factor in this game and also in a long tough winter schedule. Again I would not expect the manager to make many changes from the starting line up against Leicester, but there are some potential changes, can Flynn Downes manage two games in 4 days ? we will not get the answer to that after he picked up a 5th yellow card against Leicester, so will it be Cameron Bragg again or even Oriol Romeu and will we see Jack Stephens return, perhaps at the expense of Joshua Quashie who replaced him on Tuesday or even Nathan Wood. Apart from that it is hard to see what or why Tonda Eckert would make any other changes, going forward the wing back pairing of Ryan Manning & Tom Fellows has seen them scoring and creating goals, especially Manning who is showing the fans what he is truly capable of. The front 3 as such have been just as potent, Leo Scienza, Adam Armstrong & Finn Azaz have themselves all scored and created goals for others in the 4 game winning streak.
We now have to go to Millwall and repeat the last 3 games especially and keep doing it. If we make this a 5 game winning streak then surely that would seal the job for the foreseeable future for Tonda Eckert, he like many of the members of his team, started this without much excitement from the fans, Eckert was seen as an inexperienced manager and just what Saints didn't need to replace Will Still and there was barely a member of his squad that didn't have his critics on Saints fans social media. But suddenly those that haven't performed this season and in some cases the last two or three seasons are coming good and showing just why we signed them in the first place.
There will be a familiar face in the Millwall squad, Will Smallbone was a major part of our promotion squad two years ago, but was surplus to requirement for Will Still and loaned to them in the final days of the Transfer Window, however he has been out injured since 21st October so would not be playing even if he was not banned from doing so in a game against his parent club. So we go up to Millwall with a confidence that we haven't seen in a Saints squad in a long time, 2 years ago under Russell Martin you felt that the players never really bought into his tactics and felt constrained by Martin's strict instructions that the ball should always be passed and never cleared even when necessary. Now there is none of that, Eckert is using the players strength's as the base for his strategy and the squad has responded.
Of course we are Southampton supporters we have all been brought up watching teams that have the knack to snatch draws from wins and defeat from the jaws of victory, we are almost conditioned that things will always go wrong, it is only a matter of when. But so far under Eckert that has not happened and we just need to keep winning and then see where that takes us, hopefully it will be to the fringes of the Play off spots by 5pm on Saturday. All Photos Via Reuters Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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