The first of two home games in quick succession, but after the euphoria of the last week when first Arsenal & then Wrexham were despatched, we need to get focused on a Derby side who themselves are in good form and harbour hopes of a top six finish themselves which could disappear with defeat at St Mary's.

There is a feeling of confidence that hasn't been felt in a long time amongst Saints supporters, it was certainly not there under Russell Martin, but Tonda Eckert has done something special to this squad and the fanbase are starting to wake up to that fact.

There are no complaints about the manager now, nor the recruitment and Southampton are the form team in the Championship and are being talked about in higher echelons after the victory over Arsenal.

But now we need to re focus against the Rams, who themselves have dragged themselves to the fringes of the play offs with 5 wins in 7 games and given those 2 defeats were 1-0 at Millwall and then 3-2 at Coventry, they are no mugs.

But their team will be missing a key player, Ben Brereton Diaz who is on loan from St Mary's to Derby, he has been in fine form of late and has scored 7 goals in the Championship, 5 of them since the turn of the year and has started to show his class in the last few of months.

But he will of course be unable to play against his parent club.

That is a boost for Saints for Saints but Sam Szmodics who many will remember from 2 years ago when he was top scorer in the Championship playing for Blackburn, is now on loan at Derby from Ipswich and he could step in after missing the last two games with concussion.

But as they say in football, you have to concentrate on your own game and that has been a big feature of Tonda Eckert's style of management, he is methodical in his preparation and finding weaknesses in the opposition.

But more importantly he has built a belief and a spirit in the squad that has produced this great run, it took him time to rejig the squad, but he has now done that and got a squad that plays for him and has two strong contenders for every position.

So we now have to go again against Derby and make sure that after the result in this game we are not only still in the play off spots with a game in hand, but hopefully moving nearer the clubs above us.

That could be helped tonight when Millwall travel to West Brom, the Baggies will be looking for the 3 points that will push them almost to safety in the League table, if they do that, then two straight wins in the next few days could see us in 4th position, even if Hull win at Sheffield United, although we could go into 5th tomorrow if they only manage a draw.

We could even go into 4th on Tuesday if we were to complete those two wins, but Middlesbrough are at home to Pompey, so if they lost to the Skates it would be a bitter sweet feeling if we were in 4th place.

But it is one task at the time and having got into 6th place and put distance between us and Wrexham we now need to cement our place in the play offs, we can do that with two straight wins, if Wrexham lose at Birmingham on Sunday.

If that scenario happens, then we could fins ourselves on 72 points and 8 points ahead of them with just 4 games to go.

But Tonda Eckert knows that football can have a tendency to come up and bite you in the bum when you don't expect it, he will have spoken to Mikel Arteta last week who definitely had that feeling.

A month or so ago, it was a lot easier to predict the team that Eckert would put out, but that is not the case now, he utilises it to maximum effect.

He will tweak his squad again, given two games in just 4 days, and when you consider not just the quality of those that came off the bench at Wrexham, Ross Stewart, Welington, Leo Scienza, Nathan Wood & Cameron Archer, all players proven at this level, but those that didn't get a game, Cameron Bragg, Caspar Jander, Joshua Quarshie & Tom Fellows, he has more than enough in reserve and don't forget Jay Robinson, Elias Jelert & Oriol Romeu.

This is what has seen us through this unbeaten run, not only the quality of our starting XI but the quality of the entire squad, it has a depth that those around us lack.

So we need to go out and do a job against Derby, grind out another win, it doesn't matter whether it is 1-0 or 5-1, it is all about getting 3 points.

It will be good to see a packed St Mary's with the game now going to the ticket exchange after selling out, it needs to see the atmosphere against Arsenal recreated, if we want the team to succeed then we all need to do more than just sit and watch them in silence.

Of course every supporter supports the team in their own way, but this is football not the cinema, not everyone wants to sing and shout, but surely everyone can offer words of encouragement rather that as some do sit back and watch only missing a bag of popcorn to make the cinematic experience complete.

This is not to slag anyone off, just to point out we are supporters and the definition of that word is "Those that support", we are in the last 6 games of the season, there is a lot to play for, we all need to be the 12th man and bring the noise !

All Photos Via Reuters