Saints take on Fulham in the 5.15pm televised match on Saturday knowing that the worst they could finish the day on will be 7th, but the best could be 2nd.
In many respects this is a big acid for Saints, no one is doubting the teams ability to compete with the best, the draw at Old Trafford and win at Anfield proved that, however the question mark over the great start to the season is our ability to score goals and see off the sides who come to St Mary's looking for a draw. Although we are unbeaten at home so far, all our games have been against teams residing in the lower half of the table and in all of those we have struggled to despatch them, even the two wins had their question marks over them and although Palace couldn't muster a shot on target, we had to rely on two quick goals to see them off.
But if we can cure our shyness in front of goal and turn possession into goals and therefore points, then there is no reason why we shouldn't be very happy bunnies looking at the table on Saturday evening, as mentioned we could well sit 2nd if we win, although that will change on Sunday as Man City play Chelsea, the reality is though that Liverpool will beat West Brom at home and that will be enough to keep them ahead of us.
Fulham should not be underestimated though and it should be noted that only two games ago they sat in the bottom three, two straight wins have pushed them up the table and if they did win at St Mary's they would be within two points of us, that should issue a note of caution to those who crow about our great start to the season, that this is still early days and that a few losses or wins can make a great deal of difference to the league table, its a marathon and not a sprint as the old adage says and therefore where we are now counts for nothing its where we are come May that really matters.
On Monday Fulham despatched Palace 4-1 coming back from a goal down and we have to make sure that we don't let them repeat the feat, at Selhurst Park they scored two wonder goals from distance and it doesn't matter how good your defence is you cant defend against shots like that so we have to make sure that we don't give them the opportunity to repeat the feat.
From a Saints point of view the big question is whether Mauricio Pochettino will play both Lambert & Osvaldo or whether he will repeat his tactics of Old Trafford and drop one to the bench, my thoughts on this are well documented, I feel that a choice has to be made between one or the other and that playing both together has been detrimental to our creating and scoring going forward and the goals scored in open play support this theory.
If I was basing which of the two should play this Saturday after Osvaldo's display at Old Trafford you would almost certainly have to select Lambert ahead of the Italian, however I feel that Pochettino wont do that, like many managers at clubs far bigger than Saints, when you have a big signing you have to justify signing them by playing them week in week out almost to the point of distraction, even when its quite clear to the outside world that they are not worth their place.
Now Im not saying that about Osvaldo, he clearly is a class act and I think he will come good, but the plain truth is that he hasn't succeeded so far at Saints and that has to be down to the system rather than a lack of quality, indeed the same can be said about Rickie Lambert and his barren season, used in the proper way for England he has scored in open play, in the Saints system this season he has barely had a sniff.
I don't buy the "look at the league table" attitude of some Saints fans on this matter, the best managers in football are those that are pro active and can see problems arising even when things are going well and deal with them before they become a problem, we are going to find out soon whether Pochettino is a pro active manager or a re active one, Glenn Hoddle might now be reviled amongst Saints supporters, but when he was boss at the Dell his strength was he could read the patterns of a game and knew just when to make changes so that problems didn't become crisis's
When analysing any football team you have to look at the areas of improvement and who is not functioning and at the moment we are reliant on keeping people out, as Palace found out on Monday, you can legislate for long range goals of the season, at some time we will get caught out like that, we have to be able to outscore sides at times rather than out defend them so to speak.
I bring up points like this because they are relevant, ok we will all have differing opinions about how much of a issue they are, but the goals in open play stats are something that needs addressing, I want us to be second come 7pm Saturday evening, I want us to continue to thrive, but in football no team keeps being successful if they keep standing still and not addressing key issues.
Only real injury problem seems to be Steve Davis, if he is fit then I would expect the side to be the same as at Old Trafford although I would like to see us get a bit more width into our play especially on the left where in our last games we have seemed to have played without a wide left player per se, but reliant on getting someone over to cover.
If Davis isn't fit then I would expect to see Jamie Ward Prowse in the team in his place, JWP in many way is similar to Davis in the fact both are busy players, the difference between the two though is that although Davis is strong on moving the ball quickly on to another player and helping us break quickly, JWP is a better deliverer of the ball both from open play and dead ball situations.
This is a winnable game for Saints as is the visit to Stoke next week, however as I started this preview with, this is an acid test for Saints, we need to prove that we can beat teams and beat them well and we need to prove that we can score from open play a bit more.