Saints take on Newcastle at St Mary's this evening in a game that was originally scheduled for January 2nd before being controversially postponed with insinuations abounding of the North East side exaggerating their injury issues.
Newcastle fan websites have this week been making much about Ralph Hasenhuttl's comments regarding the postponed fixture back in January, which in essence were little more general remarks concerning how Saints had to still play fixtures last season when ravaged by injury.
But it seems Newcastle fans are rather touchy these days about suggestions that they are buying their way to Premier League safety and even more so if you mention the consortium behind their recent takeover, in truth it doesn't really matter, but if it eases the conscience of a few members of the Toon Army about their ownership then fair enough.
Back in August when we played them up at St James Park, things were a lot different, they had had years of what they saw as bad ownership by Mike Ashley and the natives were indeed restless and they could see relegation zooming.
We battered them in the first half yet failed to score and then conceded a soft goal shortly after the break, that looked to be it until Nathan Redmond came on and changed the game, firstly crossing for Moi Elyounoussi to force the ball home from close range and then after another soft goal in the 90th minute that looked to have given the home side a win they scarcely deserved, Redmond put a ball through for Adam Armstrong who was brought down and James Ward Prowse slotted home to give us a point.
Tonight's game will be a lot different, Newcastle will point to the fact that some of the money they have spent is on players who are now injured and that these players were hardly world class stars anyway, but they signed horses for courses and I doubt whether this time next year Eddie Howe will still be the manager and the likes of Chris Wood and Dan Burn will still be getting a a games, once safety is assured they will be signing players to get them in the top 4 not save them from relegation.
They arrive at St Mary's as one of the form teams of the Premier League, only Liverpool have a better record than them in the last 5 matches, the spirit is high in the Newcastle camp and their fans might try and defend their spending spree, but they are unbeaten in 7 games the Premier League in 2022 taking 13 points, after previously winning just once and taking just 7 points in Eddie Howe's first game in charge, proof perhaps that it isn't so much a change of manager that has changed their fortunes, but spending £85 million in January.
But are Newcastle improved as drastically as the last 5 games would suggest, they have won 4 of them, but each of those 4 sides was in poor form when they met, Everton, Leeds, Villa & Brighton had at the time of meeting Newcastle been in a downturn, a draw at West Ham was a decent result though.
So Saints are only the second side they are meeting in the last 6 games that have been in some sort of form.
So we have to make sure that the display at Aston Villa was a blip rather than the start of a poor run.
At Villa Park we were not at the races, it was a step to far in a good run, we had started to believe our own hype and we didn't put the work rate in, this was all not helped by the fact that Danny Ings knew where our weak spot was and how to exploit it.
In many respect Manchester United had as many chances against us as Villa did, but the luck was with us that day it wasn't at Villa.
Also missing was Mohammed Salisu and he has been a key player this season, had he played at Villa, perhaps the final result would not have changed, but the way we defended definitely would have.
All being equal I would not expect Ralph Hasenhuttl to change the side that much, I would think that Kyle Walker Peters would come in at right back with Livramento on the left, in the centre of defence I would hope Salisu returns alongside Bednarek, if he doesn't pass muster then i would not be surprised to see Yan Valery partner Bednarek rather than Jack Stephens.
In the midfield, again no change with Armstrong, JWP, Romeu & Elyounoussi doing the honours.
Up front Broja & Adams are first choice, but Adam Armstrong still has a part to play this season.
But equally there could be a change of formation and we could go with 3 at the back as we did in the second half at Villa.
Whatever the formation what has to change from Villa is the work rate and lack of oomph, I was going to write spirit, but that was shown in the way we dug in at 4-0 down for the last 35 minutes after conceding soft goals.
This is a game we can win, next season will see a completely different side again out for Newcastle, they will of course want to win tonight and get quickly to the point where they are certain to be in the Premier League next season, with 28 points now they only need two more wins and they are probably there with a draw or two, but we have to make sure that tonight is a setback for them.
From our perspective we need to keep our place in the top 10, the defeat on Saturday means that there are 4 sides behind us within 2 points, we have to widen that gap again, at the moment we could still finish anywhere between 9th & 14th, each win is a step nearer 9th.
Another full house at St Mary's and hopefully the crowd will be behind the team from the start and still there at the end.
There is still a lot to play for this season, the defeat at Villa should not make us forget that, we go into mid March still with a chance in the FA Cup and with a good chance of a top 10 finish at the end of the season, truthfully there has not been many seasons we have been able to say that in the last 30 years, that is a measure of the progress we are making.