Saints head up to East Anglia and Carrow Road hoping to win their 3rd away fixture of the season and pull clear of the drop zone in the process.
No one said it was going to be easy in the premier league and this seems to now be the case, a few weeks ago it looked like Saints had turned a corner and had put themselves in the position to surge forward and virtually guarantee safety, however two straight defeats has kept them right in sight of the four clubs below us and if we make it three defeats on the trot on Saturday the league table could make very uncomfortable reading after the weekends fixtures have been completed.
The aim for the rest of the season has to be to average more than a point a game, if we do that then we should be heading towards safety but even that will leave it a little tight, this being the case though what i think is most important for us as a team right now is not to get beaten at Carrow Road, we need to put back some confidence in the team, we know that we can score goals, but what is worrying is our ability to defend them and i cant remember a run of games like now where literally every goal has resulted from an error of some kind or just a lack of concentration, we need to show ourselves that we can cut that out of our game.
The trouble is for Mauricio Pochettino is how to stop the goals leaking, he plays a certain way and to blunt to do that he doesnt have defenders of the calibre needed, in recent games all of our defence have been culpable of making errors that have cost goals, be it from set pieces, Yoshida at Wigan, lack of concentration Shaw at Wigan, poor defending, Fox, Hooiveld, Shaw, Yoshida and Clyne, MoPo's problem is that it isnt one weak link its several and to be blunt there is little he can do about it, perhaps the only hope if that Fonte in no having been playing hasnt got made any errors and he could throw in Forren and hope that central defensive partnership works, but its all a gamble and really at this stage we shouldnt be gambling, going forward we are fine, defensively its a shambles at key moments.
So at Carrow Road its about adapting, Norwich's record at home of 6 wins, 5 draws and 3 defeats plus a goals tally of only 16 for(only QPR & Villa have worse) is counterbalanced by only 15 against, exactly the same number that Man Utd have conceded at Old Trafford, but bear in mind that Liverpool hit five of those back in September and perhaps the Canaries have the tightest home defence in the league if you take that blip out of the equation.
What these stats perhaps tell us is that they play in a certain way, they concentrate on defending first and attacking second, they defend deep and go on the break, the worrying thing here is that we could play exactly into their hands, Newcastle & QPR adapted their game to concentrate on our weak points, Norwich perhaps just need to keep playing their natural game and that has to be a worry.
So we know our strengths and weaknesses and presuambly the manager does too, its time to show us just why Nicola Cortese rates him so highly and time to show that the timing of his arrival isnt going to turn out to be the biggest mistake in the Clubs recent history but is going to prove to be a giant leap forward, to do that Pochettino needs to show he can adapt, if we play too much of a pressing game then perhaps this will play right into Norwich's hands, we are playing just the way they would like us too, perhaps we can change, try and draw Norwich out a little and expose them at the back, try not to give them room to break quickly, our new manager needs to now show us he is a liot more than the one trick pony that our QPR Spanish friend suggested.
The problem is for the manager though is what it has come down to all season, the manager can get his tactics right, get the team properly prepared etc but at the end of the day he can have no control over these defensive errors that keep getting committed, he has no better options at the moment at the back, he can send the team out but all he can do is pray that whoever is in the back four cut out the errors.