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.      

Photo: Action Images

slynch added 13:10 - Mar 8 Pochettino's wild dogs will hound down those Canaries and will tear Norwich to ribbons. They won't get the ball for long periods and when they do they'll be chased down till they give it back. They'll back into their own half and clog up the penalty area but Saints should win 0 - 2. But there are weak links as you say; if Lallana plays it'll be 1 - 3, if Yosh plays it'll be 2-2 if Fox plays it'll be 3-1.

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ExiledSupporter added 13:25 - Mar 8 Depressingly true. It is not the Manager's fault that he has inherited a squad plagued by deficient defenders (and I don't think that is attributable to the previous Mgr either). What particularly concerns me is that he may have no other tactic other than the style recently adopted to which the defenders he does possess are poorly suited. But I am also concerned that neither he nor his new staff have sufficient knowledge of the lesser sides in the league (like Norwich) and would necessarily anticipate the particular strategy that Norwich will adopt. On the other hand we don't have a poor record at Carrow Road so I think that with determination and concentration we might emerge with more than one point

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ExiledSupporter added 13:30 - Mar 8 Just to be clear, I am in no way endorsing the invariably ridiculous and bizarre comments made by slynch (such as those above). For instance he has variously recommended dropping Schneiderlein and Cork in recent weeks! It's St Nick's comments that are to the point!
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trotsky added 14:10 - Mar 8 Not sure even slynch endorses slynch's views to be honest. The point about the defence that Nick only makes implicitly is that for all of their perceived faults, Adkins had actually been getting the best out of them. We conceded 29 in his first eleven Premier League games, and only ten in the last eleven, before Cortese proceeded to piss all over the club's collective toes. This probably had something to do with his being a very good manager, and maybe MP will come to the same conclusions and make the same progress, but it's likely to be too late to secure survival. I will be watching with blind faith rather than the previous expectation.

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richardmdcooper added 14:36 - Mar 8 Good points trotsky although to be fair, Nick did an earlier article on that very topic - i.e. adkins made the necessary adjustments to get the best out of the defense and MP now has to prove he can do the same..I'm not convinced he will and I would be much happier with NA at the helm but cortese's made the bed, now we have to sleep in it I still feel we have enough quality to surivive but it could be very tight whereas with NA, I think it would have been a comfortable lower mid-table finish

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