Saints take on League leaders Millwall at St Mary's and after the loss at Watford and the debacle against West ham United, need to find something to ensure that come 5pm on Saturday this is considered a good start to the season and not a poor one.

The big question on everyone's lips prior to this game is whether new signing Keven Schlotterbeck will play and then second question will be how he will fit his name on his shirt and the third whether the weight of the lettering will weight him down and impede his ability to jump.

He should of course be fit enough, he has had a full pre season and played the full game in Augsburg's 2-0 win at Energie Cottbus in the German cup last weekend.

This will depend on a couple of things, firstly whether he has received International clearance and secondly how much time he has spent at Staplewood, most of the formalities on this transfer were done, on Wednesday, so he could potentially have trained on Thursday and again today.

Given the performance of Jack Stephens so far this season Tonda Eckert will be keen to get Schlotterbeck into the side, but I think it might have to wait a few days.

Talking of Captain Jack, he might just keep his place in the side as Saints are a little short in the centre of defence at the moment, Taylor Harwood-Bellis may return, after all interest in him seems to have died down a little, if he does then Jack might be on the bench.

But if he is still not in the right condition, then with Joshua Quarshie joining Sturm Graz we could be caught short in the centre of defence if anyone gets injured on Saturday.

In the centre of midfield, there could be an outside chance of the return of the prodigal son, again all the paperwork on the deal has been completed it just hasn't been announced, but should be today.

With no red tape such as International clearance and the fact that JWP has played in the Championship this season coming on as a sub at Burnley at half time and also played the last 15 minutes against Portsmouth in the Carabao cup.

So there could be a good chance that Ward-Prowse might start this game alongside Flynn Downes in the holding role in midfield.

Ahead of them will be Finn Downes, but the two wide roles and centre forward are not so certain.

There are four candidates, of course out left Leo Scienza will play, he scored a trademark goal against The Hammers in midweek, but on the right it is not so clear.

Tom Fellows, Kuryu Matsuki, Sam Edozie & Lewis Dobbin will also stake a claim.

Edozie looked good in his short cameo on Tuesday evening playing on the left, so I would not be too disappointed to see him employed on the right against Millwall.

Lewsi Dobbin could be an outside bet, I feel sorry for Dobbin, he has tried hard but seems to be a square peg in a round hole at the moment, he is primarily a left winger, but the experiment at Watford that saw him play in that position with Scienza in the centre, did not work and so far he is not better than the Brazilian.

In the number 10 position, he is not going to replace Finn Azaz, the man who makes Saints tick, so using him on the right could be an option, but perhaps not in this game.

Up front I would expect it to be Cyle Larin, he has scored in all three of our games so far, Divin Mabusa came on and scored against Stoke, but Larin is the in form man, so I would expect the usual 60-70 minutes of Larin with Mabusa coming on in the final stages.

So with a team reading

Peretz
Bree, Harwood-Bellis, Stephens(Schlotterbeck/Wood) Manning

Downes, Ward Prowse

Matsuki, Azaz, Sceinza

Larin

Plus a bench of Long, Wood, Welington Bragg, Dobbin, Fellows, Edozie, Dobbin, Mabusa

We have a strong team to take on Millwall, but more importantly a strong bench.

The South London side are deservedly top and if we didn't have those 4 points deducted then we would be sitting in 10th with a chance of drawing level with Millwall by beating them.

It is important to get perspective, yes we have that 4 points deduction, but it skews the actual League table. we can only get a true view of the way the season is going by comparing where we would be without the 4 points being taken off.

We would only be a point off 4th place, we would be challenging, that is our true form and not bottom.

But a goal win over Millwall without the 4 point deduction would technically jump us above them on goals scored, a bigger margin would be on goal difference, that is perhaps going to be difficult as so far this season they are yet to concede a goal.

If I was to be uncharitable to them though, I would point to the fact that they have beaten Bristol City & Norwich , the Canaries have lost both of their outings in the Championship and are 2nd from bottom and would indeed be bottom but for our points deduction and the Robins have just a single point and aren't far above them.

We have to make teams look over their shoulder and say Southampton might be near the bottom, but if they didn't have the 4 point deduction then they would be right up there, we have to make them fear us as they did last season.

This is Millwall's first real challenge of the season, it is going to be a test for them and we have to make sure that we put them to the sword.

So far our 3 games have been riddled with individual errors, literally every goal we have conceded in League & cup was an error, most unenforced, if we had cut them out we would be sitting pretty going into this game.

I am going to ignore the West Ham game, it was not our first team out there, it was a hotch potch of the squad and it showed.

At Watford we shot ourselves in the foot, we did the same against Stoke, but we were much improved and we were making progress, yes we left it late, but that was our trademark last season, this is a side that isn't beaten until the final whistle.

I maintain that our issues are because our pre season, did not have enough focus on playing games and so we have had to iron out the issues in competitive games and we have paid the price.

But we are getting there and hopefully we will show that at St Mary's on Saturday

All Photos Via Reuters