Saints travel to Molyneux to take on Wolverhampton Wanderers in the 5th round of the FA Cup and Ralph Hasenhuttl will be making several changes in his line up, some will be forced, some will be tactical and all will be very interesting.
There will be some changes to the Saints team tonight rom the one that faced Newcastle United on Saturday and Ralph Hasenhuttl will just be glad to have some different options.
The first one is likely to be in goal were Fraser Forster has been the preferred keeper in the FA Cup, in the previous rounds Ralph has said that Alex McCarthy remains his number 1, but McCarthy's performance at Newcastle was not up to standard and in truth he has been error prone since the turn of the year, this gives Forster a great opportunity to regain the Goalkeepers jersey on a permanent basis.
At right back Kyle Walker Peters is Likely to return, but the biggest change could be in the centre of defence, Jannik Vestergaard returned on Saturday but had only just returned to full training, meaning Saints wont want to risk him playing 3 games in 8 days, so he is likely to step down.
Jack Stephens could return to the centre of defence in the starting line up, but he like McCarthy has been error prone and so it is likely that we will see the first ever appearance in a Saints shirt of Mohammed Salisu and this will be the biggest interest of the night, he will likely play alongside Jan Bednarek.
At right back Ryan Bertrand will keep his place.
In midfield James Ward Prowse and Oriol Romeu will hold the centre and I expect a the wide men to be Nathan Redmond and Moussa Djenepo with Danny Ings and Che Adams up front.
LIkely to be out are Ibrahima Diallo & Theo Walcott through injury and Takumi Minamino being cup tied, although I have the feeling that Stuart Armstrong having trained during the week might return on the bench.
That will leave a bench of Alex McCarthy/Harry Lewis, Jack Stephens, Jannik Vestergaard, Stuart Armstrong, Dan N'Lundulu, Kayne Ramsey, Will Ferry, Caleb Watts & Kgagelo Chauke.
This is a big week for Saints, firstly they need to get back to winning ways and this would be a great night to do it, the FA Cup will open up now and this is a great chance to turn this season into something to remember other than Covid 19.
The problem will be what we have off the bench though, the starting XI is good enough to win the game, but we have little options to change the game coming off it.
It is what it is though, ideally we win tonight and then go on to win against the same opposition this time at St Mary's on Sunday, if we won both then our problems would look far behind us, but one step at a time lets try and win each game as it comes.