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Saints Still Need One More Win

Five games ago we talked of ho Saints season was at a crossroads, which way would it turn, now we know and we need to secure one more win to push us towards safety and what better place to get it than Norwich City on Saturday.

Five games that have seen only one win and 3 points gained with four defeats, whilst not exactly plunging us back into the relegation dogfight, have exposed our weaknesses and meant we are now looking over our shoulders a little.

Back at the start of February I repeated what I have been saying all season that ultimately our defence is not good enough and that has proved the case yet again as all four defeats saw errors that cost us the game., don't tell me I have something against anyone in that defence, I am only stating the obvious, it is not rocket science.

But there is no need to panic, although the last month has also exposed ourselves to injury issues and even the sad death of Moussa Djenepo's mother has not helped our cause and now his suspension, the fact still remains that although in terms of position the League table does not look too good, after Aston Villa's drubbing at Leicester, there are 6 teams a fair way behind us and they have a lot of ground to make up.

But we have to make sure they don't make up that ground and on Saturday we saw Newcastle leapfrog us as we went down to defeat to them with yet another error just as we seemed to have earned a point.

These two games highlight just where we should be and how tight things can get, two late goals against Newcastle being defended properly would now see us on 36 points, but more importantly take four points off them and they would be on 31, this highlights just how we have been the architects of our own struggle when really we should be coasting.

So we go to Norwich City knowing that if we can win then we are all but safe, it will leave Norwich with a mountain to climb and keep the gap between us and the bottom three intact perhaps even stretch it.

But we need to get something at Carrow Road, if only for our own confidence, 9 goals conceded in those 5 games is poor, only Villa have conceded more this season, we have had our blips but recovered, but the 1.8 goals per game average conceded in these 5 games is all the evidence you need why we are still looking over our shoulder and not upwards

I'm sure Ralph Hasenhuttl is tearing his hair out at present, he sets up his side to keep it tight and play to a certain way and every game it seems someone lets him down in the back four.

But hopefully we can focus ourselves for the trip to Norwich, we seem to raise our game when it truly matters, all of our wins have come in this situation when we have the adrenalin running, when there is nothing in the game certain players cannot seem to focus and concentrate, hopefully that won't be the case at Norwich.

So being on the road suits us, the Canaries will push on, but they are the joint worst scorers in the Premier League, if we can shut them out, even with the likes of Djenepo and Redmond missing we can still go at them on the break.

The trick now is to stay calm and get the job done and then we can concentrate on making our defence a top 10 unit along with our attack and then next season could see us spring a few shocks.

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