What sort of side will Claude Puel put out ? will he try and attack or try to subdue an Arsenal side who are in last chance saloon.
This is a do or die game for Arsenal and perhaps Arsene Wenger's tenure at the Emirates and ironically his compatriot on the other bench could be in exactly the same position.
Put bluntly if Arsenal lose or for that matter even draw they would find their hopes of Champions League football next season virtually over and this would see the Arsenal fans turn on their manager.
So what does Claude Puel do tonight, he could see his team jump to 8th if they beat the Gunners, but what tactics does he adopt.
If he tries to attack as he did against Chelsea and Manchester City then we could get murdered by the Arsenal pace, but if we try to counter it by sitting three men deep to protect our centre of defence then we do so at the expense of being able to commit men forward when we attack.
Puel did this at Liverpool and although it meant that Liverpool rarely got in behind us of could run at our defence it also meant that when we attacked on the break we rarely did so with numbers and the home defence was able to deal with it easily.
So it is a dilemma for Puel, the problem since losing Van Dijk has been one of shipping goals, if he deals with that issue by packing the centre of midfield and keeping them deep lying it means we lose out on the attacking options.
If he tries to attack then Arsenal could murder us as they did in the FA Cup.
Saints performances over the last couple of seasons have been built on a strong central defensive pairing who can cope with counter attacks meaning that we could commit men forward when we attack ourselves, we haven't got that now and that has mean't that to deal with it we have to dilute our attacking options.
This is why our results have veered from good to appalling of late, even the games we ave kept clean sheets in have not exactly been strong defensive performances, Bournemouth on another day could have had and should have had three, Palace should have scored more and Liverpool although short on clear chances still capitalised on the two times we did have lapses in concentration and but for Fraser Forster would have won the game.
So I think that tonight Puel has no option other than to continue on from Liverpool, it is not going to be good to watch, but is going to be preferable to another Chelsea or Man City.
Arsenal are a side who are quick and like to attack on the break, we have to make sure that they don't do so and damage us.
At the start of the season we had the personnel to cope as was shown by our performance at the Emirates that saw us lose 2-1 in controversial fashion and deserve at least a point perhaps more, now we cannot defend as we have done in the past, so we have to adapt.
Saints stand at a crossroads, if they fail to win any of their last four games then we could finish as low as 16th, however if we can win two of them we are guaranteed a top ten finish possibly higher.
If we do the former then Claude Puel's job at St Mary's will be on a knife edge, if it is the latter it may just paper over the cracks.
Yes Puel has had problems that are not within his control, but too often he has put out the wrong team and made the wrong substitutions and that is something that Les Reed and Ralph Krueger surely cannot be unaware of.