This is the most important match of Mauricio Pellegrino's season, by the end of it he will either have bought himself time or will be hanging on to his job by a thread.
After Saints beat Everton four weeks ago prompting suggestions that they and more importantly Mauricio Pellegrino had turned a corner, they have played five games and gained only 2 points, but it has not so much been the manner of those draws and defeats (Leicester aside), but the strange team selections of the manager, in a period that has seen Saints season take a nosedive and Pellegrino's standing amongst Saints fans plummet.
Now the failure totake more points from these five games is coming back to haunt us when we face Huddersfield, due to injury ravaging the full back positions, perhaps the most crucial area in the way Pellegrino likes to play.
So mkae mistake the game against Huddersfield, is every cliche in the book, "must win" "Backs to the wall" "Do or die" and literally any that you care to remember or make up.
Pellegrino's job could well hang in the balance and be decided by this one result, the Saints board are not known for sacking managers and they will be loathe to do so, so soon after getting rid of the last one, but they must be of the same opinion as most Saints fans, this is not a bad team, it is just one badly managed and Crystal Palace and Everton have shown that sacking the manager can revitalise a team and that has to be playing on Les Reed's mind.
The problem as I have been saying in recent weeks is that there is no consistency in the manager's team selection, players that have put in good performances have been dropped soon after and that is not something that builds team spirit.
Add to that the way the manager left his players out there against Arsenal for far too long without decisive substitutions and you start to worry about Saints under Pellegrino.
There is clearly something wrong in the dressing room, but just what it is, is unclear and the departure of Eric Black brings more speculation, many Saints fans seem to have blamed Black for our woes. despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence of this apart from rumour mongerers on social media followed by plenty of bleating, but the reality is noone really knows whether Black was the one man holding it all together or if he was the true problem.
The first clue we will get is at 2pm on Saturday when the team is announced, the last few annoucements have seen gasps of incredulation, the changes have been so strange many have wondered whether the manager has picked names out of the hat, what is needed is a little bit of consistency in the selection, the best players picked for the job, we do not want to see the likes of Lemina, Hoedt and even Van Dijk on the bench and the manager telling us it is tactical.
Perhaps the manager feels that the loyalty & the right attitude is the best criteris for team selection and in that respect yes you would probably pick Stephens & Yoshida et al, but this is the Premier League and the best teams are not full of players who are loyal to anyone or anything other than their wallet and their attitudes stink, sadly show me a team fullof loyalty and the right attitude and I will show you a sign saying welcome to Accrington Stanley.
A Premier league manager has to get the best out of a bad bunch these days , he has to get them playing football if not for the team bu for themselves.
Due to injury second guessing Pellegrino's startng line up is going to be even harder than usual, he is likely to be without both Soares and Bertrand and that is going to be a problem.
That could mean that he will consider a 3-5-1-1 formation as he has done in recent weeks, but the problem with that is that it was dependent on having two wing backs and without Soares and Bertrand we just dont have the class, however if Pellegrino does go fo this i would go
Forster
Yoshida, Van Dijk, Hoedt
Tadic , Lemina, Romeu, Hojbjerg, Redmond
Boufal
Austin.
However if the manager is going to stick with 4-4-2 then it is a bit more difficult as he is stuck for full backs who can get forward, Stephens can defend but he is not an attacking full back by ny means, so that means playing Pied and on the left Targett.
So
Forster
Pied, Van Dijk, Hoedt, Targett
Tadic Lemina, Romeu, Redmond
Boufal
Austin
Both line ups have their plus points, but the real issue is that neither than the pace of Soares and Bertrand, not to mention their qualities both defensive and attacking.
The quality overall of the squad is not in question, it is just being poorly managed, I keep harping on about this but it is the issue, when a manager keeps changing a team, keeps changng individuals for no apparent reason and suddenly brings in players out of the ble whohave been ignored for months, then there is something awry.
So Pellegrino has to get back to basics, he has to win this game or the reality is that he is on very stony ground.
But as Saints supporters we have to remember what we want from our team and that is to win games and move up the table, although we may not be happy at the moment. we have to get behnd the team, stay behind the team and create an atmosphere that can get three points in adversity and then we can worry about the next game.
The protest was made to the board with the mass walkout against Leicester City, what is needed now is a crowd behind the team, behind the club although not necessarily, at this moment at least behind the manager.
We want three points, we want to move up the league, we want to solve a few sort term problems and then we can worry about the long term.