Its no coincidence that Saints unbeaten three match run is on the back of playing a balanced side with square pegs in square holes.
When this season has its post mortem as all seasons do come May time, Saints supporters will look back at December & January and perhps consider that we had a bit of a funny five minutes, I wouldnt quite say that we panicked, but for a time we seemed to forget just why we were top of the league in the first place, we stopped doing what we had been doing well and all of a sudden you never quite knew what sort of selections would be made, three central midfield players with no clear right sided player didnt help the balance across the midfield and many would concur that this loss of balance in this crucial area did not help us as we battled to try and find our form again.
Now we seem to have found our balance again and more to the point we seem to have some options that the manager will consider using, strangely certain players dont seem to get a look in whilst others are shoehorned in to unfamiliar roles, now this seems to have stopped we look better and confident for it.
We can now get back to our target which remains an average of two points per game between now and the end of the season, do that and 87 points should be enough for automatic promotion, like last season we have to remain focused on this task and to be blunt the failure of others to win on Saturday for whatever reason means that we have some breathing space again.
So a point at Upton Park would be a big step forward, Ok it would still keep us behind our two point average target on current form, but it keeps the Hammers in sight and gets a very tough away game out of the way, we dont need to do anything special we just need to play the side that started on Saturday with perhaps the only change being on the bench where i would expect us to lose one of the attacking options, probably Lee and bring in a midfielder, hopefully Richard Chaplow.
Do this and the players will feel settled and ready for the fight, good teams have cosistency and they have balance, we have lacked both for a while now, but with it restored we can start to get back what is perhaps the most important attribute of all for a winning side and that is confidence