Saints travel to Hull City hoping to take another big step towards a top ten finish in the Premier League by repeating their win over the Tigers the last time they visited the KC Stadium two years ago.
As regular readers of these previews will know, Im never one to count chickens before they are counted, therefore even though a nine point gap between us and 10th place is a big one at this stage of the season, I prefer to get the job done before I start to assume that our finishing position in the league is bolted on.
Hull are one of the c three clubs sitting nine points behind, beating them tonight will stretch that gap and will leave them a big mountain to climb if they are to catch us in the final 12 games left after tonight, this being the case even a draw would not be a disaster, but if we harbour hopes of taking these steps forward then this is a fixture that we have to look at winning.
There will be a couple of decisions for Mauricio Pochettino to make tonight, ideally he would be able to make optimum use of his squad, he will hope that Sam Gallagher can return to ease the burden on his strike force, Adam Lallana and Jay Rodriguez are young enough to be able to handle three games in a week, but not so with Rickie Lambert,
At full back he might prefer Callum Chambers to add some steel to the side and it could be we see the return of Wanyama to counter Hull's engine room in the centre of the park.
Danger man will be Shane Long although the hope is his shooting is as bad as it was when he faced us for West Brom a few weeks ago.
Like every game Saints are capable of getting a result, if they do then its a big step forward