Saints could be looking at another long enforced lay off after Watford won their FA Cup tie at Queens Park Rangers at the weekend, but will it help or hinder ?
Saints visit to Watford on March 16th will now have to be rescheduled after the Hornets set up a 6th round FA Cup tie date for that weekend with their win at QPR.
That means that after playing Tottenham Hotspur on March 9th the next game for Saints will be on 30th March, three weeks later when they travel to Brighton. This is due to an international break with no Premier League games being played on the weekend of 23rd March.
It is unlikely that Watford would want to bring forward the Saints date to the week before the Cup tie but that could be the only option as we go into the last two months of the season. But that would still leave the best part of 2 1/2 weeks between that game and the trip to Brighton.
But will this help or hinder Saints ?
On one hand it could help them, f it is played before the cup tie perhaps Watford will have one eye on a game a few days later that could see them earn a Wembley semi final, but on the other hand it could snarl up the fixture list later in the season.
There is also the question of it could leave Saints either with a game in hand or playing catch up depending on results from other games, if our rivals lose that weekend thend suddenly we have the psychological advantage, but of they win although we still have the game in hand we have to win it.
On the face of it though it could be a help injury wise, Danny Ings will be key to our survival but he seems to struggle to play more than a few games at a time, this break will have given him a rest, if he can play a big part in the three scheduled games between now and March 16th a three week rest would benefit him.
But the real truth is that our destiny is n our own hands, last season showed that we can play several matches in a short space of time and win games, it's as simple as that we win some games the fixture schedule doesn't matter.