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Southampton V Brentford The Preview Friday, 3rd Jan 2025 07:45 Make no bones about this game, should Saints lose to the Bees, then with only 3 days gone of the New Year, we will just about be done and dusted in any effort to try and avoid relegation back to the championship. There is no longer any leeway for Saints, we go into the New Year with just 2 points out of our last 9 Premier League games since the victory over Everton, that is an appalling record and although the performances have dramatically improved in terms of cutting out the defensive errors, the fact remains that we now need snookers to stay up. So the arrival of Brentford, who have become something of a bogey team since we beat them 4-1 at St Mary's almost to the day 3 years ago, since then we have met them 4 times and each times has been a disaster, 3 away defeats where we conceded 9 goals and scores just 1 and a 2-0 defeat at St Mary's in March 2023.
Perhaps the only ray of hope as we go into this game is that Brentford's away record is just as bad as our, they have an almost identical record, yet to win yet, they have drawn 2 on the road and lost 7, whereas we have drawn 2 and lost 8, having played one game more. They have scores 6 goals and conceded 16, whereas we have scored 5 and conceded 17, so on the face of it, we actually have a chance in this game, Brentford might have destroyed us in West London, but they are a completely different kettle of fish on the road. So what will Ivan Juric do this game ? Now he will have time to have assessed his squad a little bit more. One player who won't be playing is Mateus Fernandes who picked up a yellow card in the defeat at Crystal Palace, I would expect either Adam Lallana to get a rare start or Joe Aribo to play the more attacking role.
A question that hasn't yet been answered is whether Chelsea will recall Big Les Ugochukwu, that looked a formality a fortnight ago, having barely featured under Russell Martin, but he has played in all 3 games under Ivan Juric, and so the situation might have changed, we will find out when the teams are announced. I would think that the situation is being re assessed and that being the case I would like to see Ugochukwu start, I was surprised he didn't against Palace and I think he will be key against the Bee's. I am of course assuming that Flynn Downes will be fit, he hasn't trained much this week and I would be surprised if he does start the game, but a role off the bench could be on the cards. The only other change I would think will happen apart from if Flynn Downes is not fit, is that Cameron Archer will be back in the starting line up to replace Tall Paul Onuachu, to be blunt, Tall Paul has put in a lot of effort, but has failed to score, against Fulham & Palace he didn't really get on the end of a chance, against West Ham he had several good chances, but failed to do much with them, his efforts lacking power and direction, if Adam Armstrong had done the same with those chances, there would be mutterings about now being good enough for the Premier League, surely Tall Paul should be judged on the same standards, those of us who remember George Lawrence will know what I mean.
So aside from those two changes, I think we can see a team that is starting to find it's feet start to impose itself. One player who should not even be on the bench let alone get on the pitch is Kamaldeen Sulemana, he has been given many opportunities to make a contribution to this club, yet aside from a dead rubber against Liverpool two seasons ago, he has done nothing, I would rather see Sam Amo-Ameyaw or Fraser Forster brought on before Sulemana is used again. So my team would be: Ramsdale Subs, McCarthy, Bella-Kotchap, Manning, Taylor, Lallana, Suguwara, Onuachu, Fraser, Amo-Ameyaw.
That I feel is just about the strongest team and the strongest bench that we can put out at the moment, personally I would have liked to have seen Ben Brereton-Diaz getting a look in, before we make a final judgement and sell him on, but I think that if reports are to be believed he will be going back to Sheffield United before the week is out. So last chance saloon for Saints in this game, win it and we can at least dream of overtaking the record for the least points in a season, perhaps even dream of getting within half a dozen points of safety come the final day, we can also hope that get on a little run and you never know.
All we as Southampton fans can ask for now, is that Ivan Juric restores some pride to this team and we go down fighting, even if the task is probably just too much now. All Ivan Juric can ask of us as supporters is that we get behind the team and create that siege mentality that we used to have in those relegation battles of the 1990's. All Photos Via Reuters Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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