Saints take on Fulham in the 5.15pm televised match on Saturday knowing that the worst they could finish the day on will be 7th, but the best could be 2nd.

In many respects this is a big acid for Saints, no one is doubting the teams ability to compete with the best, the draw at Old Trafford and win at Anfield proved that, however the question mark over the great start to the season is our ability to score goals and see off the sides who come to St Mary's looking for a draw. Although we are unbeaten at home so far, all our games have been against teams residing in the lower half of the table and in all of those we have struggled to despatch them, even the two wins had their question marks over them and although Palace couldn't muster a shot on target, we had to rely on two quick goals to see them off.

But if we can cure our shyness in front of goal and turn possession into goals and therefore points, then there is no reason why we shouldn't be very happy bunnies looking at the table on Saturday evening, as mentioned we could well sit 2nd if we win, although that will change on Sunday as Man City play Chelsea, the reality is though that Liverpool will beat West Brom at home and that will be enough to keep them ahead of us.

Fulham should not be underestimated though and it should be noted that only two games ago they sat in the bottom three, two straight wins have pushed them up the table and if they did win at St Mary's they would be within two points of us, that should issue a note of caution to those who crow about our great start to the season, that this is still early days and that a few losses or wins can make a great deal of difference to the league table, its a marathon and not a sprint as the old adage says and therefore where we are now counts for nothing its where we are come May that really matters.

On Monday Fulham despatched Palace 4-1 coming back from a goal down and we have to make sure that we don't let them repeat the feat, at Selhurst Park they scored two wonder goals from distance and it doesn't matter how good your defence is you cant defend against shots like that so we have to make sure that we don't give them the opportunity to repeat the feat.

From a Saints point of view the big question is whether Mauricio Pochettino will play both Lambert & Osvaldo or whether he will repeat his tactics of Old Trafford and drop one to the bench, my thoughts on this are well documented, I feel that a choice has to be made between one or the other and that playing both together has been detrimental to our creating and scoring going forward and the goals scored in open play support this theory.

If I was basing which of the two should play this Saturday after Osvaldo's display at Old Trafford you would almost certainly have to select Lambert ahead of the Italian, however I feel that Pochettino wont do that, like many managers at clubs far bigger than Saints, when you have a big signing you have to justify signing them by playing them week in week out almost to the point of distraction, even when its quite clear to the outside world that they are not worth their place.

Now Im not saying that about Osvaldo, he clearly is a class act and I think he will come good, but the plain truth is that he hasn't succeeded so far at Saints and that has to be down to the system rather than a lack of quality, indeed the same can be said about Rickie Lambert and his barren season, used in the proper way for England he has scored in open play, in the Saints system this season he has barely had a sniff.

I don't buy the "look at the league table" attitude of some Saints fans on this matter, the best managers in football are those that are pro active and can see problems arising even when things are going well and deal with them before they become a problem, we are going to find out soon whether Pochettino is a pro active manager or a re active one, Glenn Hoddle might now be reviled amongst Saints supporters, but when he was boss at the Dell his strength was he could read the patterns of a game and knew just when to make changes so that problems didn't become crisis's

When analysing any football team you have to look at the areas of improvement and who is not functioning and at the moment we are reliant on keeping people out, as Palace found out on Monday, you can legislate for long range goals of the season, at some time we will get caught out like that, we have to be able to outscore sides at times rather than out defend them so to speak.

I bring up points like this because they are relevant, ok we will all have differing opinions about how much of a issue they are, but the goals in open play stats are something that needs addressing, I want us to be second come 7pm Saturday evening, I want us to continue to thrive, but in football no team keeps being successful if they keep standing still and not addressing key issues.

Only real injury problem seems to be Steve Davis, if he is fit then I would expect the side to be the same as at Old Trafford although I would like to see us get a bit more width into our play especially on the left where in our last games we have seemed to have played without a wide left player per se, but reliant on getting someone over to cover.

If Davis isn't fit then I would expect to see Jamie Ward Prowse in the team in his place, JWP in many way is similar to Davis in the fact both are busy players, the difference between the two though is that although Davis is strong on moving the ball quickly on to another player and helping us break quickly, JWP is a better deliverer of the ball both from open play and dead ball situations.

This is a winnable game for Saints as is the visit to Stoke next week, however as I started this preview with, this is an acid test for Saints, we need to prove that we can beat teams and beat them well and we need to prove that we can score from open play a bit more.

Photo: Action Images

brady100 added 12:34 - Oct 25 Would like to see Saints really take their chances and score some goals from open play!!
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ItchenNorth added 13:21 - Oct 25 If Pochettino is to only play one up front again he should stick with Osvaldo for Saturdays game. Old Trafford is a hard place to go and play (despite their short coming so far this season). Therefore Osvaldo needs a game like Fulham in the lead role. We can always bring Lambert on if it’s not working. I still say the main problem is the creatively behind the lead striker though. Without creatively in the number 10 role; it will to be a lot harder for Osvaldo or Lambert to unlock defences themselves.

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schatfield added 13:35 - Oct 25 i wonder if this is the game where Ramirez comes back into the folk with a chance to prove himself. If so, he could be the key to giving the striker(s) those telling shots that unlock the Fulham defence.
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ExiledSupporter added 13:53 - Oct 25 Wholly agree with ItchenNorth and Schatfield, the root of our goalscoring problem is that the player who we bought to provide the means of scoring goals has failed to perform consistently and we have no other natural no. 10) Until we change this situation then we will continue to be very limited in our goal threat, given Pochettino's preferred system.
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SaintNick added 14:02 - Oct 25 I like Ramirez, however when he plays he is a play maker with no one to [play make for, last season our style didn't suit him, this season it perhaps could if he is playing up to Osvaldo or even Rodriguez who has the pace to run on to through balls
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BoondockSaint added 14:03 - Oct 25 Hopefully this is the year we stop playing up or down to the level of our opposition. If we are as good as we think we are, Fulham is the type of team we should beat. I for one think Osvaldo has been playing well, particularly backtracking to help out on defence. Trouble is, once or twice a game he does a bit of magic that totally confuses the oppostion and leaves them flatfooted. Only trouble is, it does the same to his team mates! Hopefully with practise, this will improve. Maybe this is the time for Gaston to prove he can compliment Dani or else move on. Same for J-Rod. (Watch they both score this weekend just to prove me wrong!)

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LesVivian added 14:25 - Oct 25 The fact is that Osvaldo has done nothing yet! Everyone says he's a class act, and maybe he is, but RL's abilities are not in doubt! He should be playing, with Osvaldo striving to get in. Look at another recognized 'class act', Ramires - luckily he is not keeping so-called 'lesser' players out! Whether he or Osvaldo have the stomach to fight for their places we will have to wait and see. In the meantime, SD and JWP particulary are worth their places, and what about Cork? Surely he has the bottle for a fight to get in and stay in?

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braziliansaint added 20:24 - Oct 25 I have to tend to agree with SaintNick on most of his comments in previous posts. I have watched all Saints games this season (albeit on TV in South America) and I have to say we have been lucky. We are not exactly setting the premiership on fire although we are often controlling games. Against Swansea and Manchester United we were more than lucky and as Nick mentioned we could have easily, on another day, conceded 3 or 4. Others are saying that soon we will give a team a good hiding but I am concerned that actually it will be the other way round. We do, therefore, need to get our strikers working. I think that the inclusion of Wanyama has helped us defensively but we have definitely lost something going forward. More chances were created for our strikers with Llanana, Cork and Schneiderlin playing together. Now less chances are being created and it seems we are hoping that Rickie or Osvaldo will create something out of nothing. At Roma, Osvaldo had Totti threading passes through but we have noone who is doing that and of course our team is not set-up to play that way. I honestly feel we still need a pacey winger or two plus a real creative presence in midfield who also works hard to win back the ball. My thoughts were that Ramirez could be the ideal foil for Osvaldo, threading balls through for him to run on to, but as he is out of favour it looks unlikely. Also he would need to up his game significantly. Maybe Coutinho would have been the answer. Either way i feel we need more pace (we often look slow and lethargic going forward with a lack of options) and a real creative player somewhere on the pitch! - See more at: http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/southampton/news/33157/goals-do-the-talkin

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