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Southampton At Leicester City The Preview

Saints travel up to Leicester knowing that it is almost certain that they will just be in the play offs come the end of the season, however there is still the feint hope of 3rd place to play for, however the Foxes are playing for a bigger prize.

After the dismal display that was the trip to Cardiff City Saints have to pick themselves up and go again, despite the fact that it is almost all eyes on the play offs now for Southampton supporters.

So will Russell Martin make sweeping changes or will he take the viewpoint that at Cardiff it was down to poor finishing rather than the overall performance.

I would hope that he would take that path, but I fear that after his substitutions on Saturday, that he does not know what to do for the best, although I would think that he will not start with 3 wingers on the pitch, as he ended the game with at the Cardiff City Stadium.

The absence of Flynn Downes at Cardiff was a big factor in our defeat, just when he needed a big strong central midfield player though, he dropped him from the squad, Shea Charles has been in and out of the squad lately and it has cost us when he is not available, it is strange why Martin chooses to drop him from the squad after he has come on as a sub and done a job.

So I would not even hazard a guess just which starting line up Russell Martin will choose for this one.

The frustrating thing about Saturday and indeed a lot of the last two months or so, is that the manager just doesn't seem to be able to manage his squad, he doesn't keep faith when things are tough, it is easier to change both in the starting line up and the quite frankly shocking substitutions made.

My fear is that one again it will be change for change's sake in a team and indeed squad that has absolutely no direction or leadership on or off the pitch at present.

The one hope against Leicester is that we do have quality in the side, maybe they will find professional pride and dig in and find something that the manager has failed to find in the last months.

The sad thing is that back in February Russell Martin had found a winning formula and we looked set for automatic promotion, but it was Martin himself that upset the balance and when things started to go wrong he has too many options and doesn't know what to do for the best.

Hopefully we can get a result at Leicester tonight, not for the points, but for our own pride and confidence, football players at any level want to have a gameplan, they want to know that those that play well get picked and those that don't are not in the team, Russell Martin has brought uncertainty to the squad, but it is the players who will achieve a result this evening, but I fear that as we get on the cusp of it, once again some poor substitutions will snatch defeat from victory once again.

That has been the case on far too many occasions this season, how many times have we given away a lead, sometimes we have dragged it back, but too often this is not the case, perhaps we will get it right tonight and give ourselves something to build on for the play offs.

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