Part 2 of the 3 part trilogy that will point the direction of the rest of the season.
Saints take on Exeter City at St Mary's knowing that another win is needed to push them within touching distance of a top 2 spot, however this game may well be tougher than the game against Huddersfield in that Exeter are more likely to batten down the hatches and force Saints to break them down whilst the Yorkshire side were far more open.
As we know when a side puts two solid defensive lines up at SMS we do struggle to break them down and the key will be Richard Chaplow, in short our new permanent signing offers a more mobile attacking option whereas the Hammond Schneiderlin combination is a lot more pedestrian and although it can keep Saints protected defensively it rarely creates anything going forward with goals being somewhat rarer.
With all but Lee Holmes back from injury Nigel Adkins now has a dilemma regarding selections and on a cautious note you would hope that he would not revert to some of the players that have not performed, on Tuesday there was a hint of that in the fact that Harding returned and Chaplow sat on the bench, although with the latter that could have been precautionary, Adkins has to be ruthless and not allow any passengers to be carried and to be blunt (especially for Channonites word tree) he has done that for far too long so far.
But beat the Grecians and we can take giant steps forward towards promotion, the team to fear in the promotion race is always the one coming good in the second half of the season and in truth ( fro Channonite) Saints have been decidely average so far yet due to the poor quality of this division this year are still in the top six, if we can get a ruun of wins together then we should be more than capable of not only getting automatic promotion but also winning the league.
But its sides like Exeter than need to be beaten, of course they have pushed themselves into the play off chasing pack and indeed would leapfrog Saints if they win at SMS, but they are also only seven points off the bottom four such is the condensity of the league so far this season, but time for the team as well as the manager to be ruthless, we have the quality and its time to see it shine through and start destroying sides, not in odd games like Huddersfield, but consistently on a week by week basis.
To finish it would be nice to see a big crowd for this one, certainly it should all add up to the biggest crowd of the season, a South Coast Derby, A large away following, a chance to go second, a Bank Holiday and dont forget that with an adult ticket, kids under 8 go free, for kids under 12 its £6 and an under 16 £8 so its not going to break the bank to take your family and indeed these prices apply to every game this season.