Saints head for a meeting with the Red Devils looking to beat them at St Mary's for the first time since 2003/04 season when a goal from James Beattie in the final minutes secured the three points.

A victory against United at home is long overdue it has been over a dozen years since we last sent them packing with that Devil's tail between their legs and that has meant that we are yet to exorcise that last day defeat that relegated us back in 2005.

Since our return to the Premier we have suffered two losses and a draw and it is about time we beat them.

Of course iit will be tough to do so, it always is, even though they have been in decline recently they are still a hard act to beat and now we have to find out if they are about to revive their fortunes or their start has been due to playing some clubs just at the right time, certainly their two home wins against Spurs and Liverpool could come into that category and a defeat against Swansea City suggests that when they come up against a good side they might struggle.

They also have a lot of injury problems at the moment, Luke Shaw had been a bright star for them this season and had looked like he was going to recapture the form he showed at Saints, but his broken leg will mean that he will not only miss the game today but probably most of the season.

So the big question is how will this affect United, certainly they have the squad to replace Shaw and indeed if Rooney is not quite fit. but will it gel ?

So there has never been a better time for Saints to face United, we can take the game to them, the key areas could be the flanks, if we can get down their left flank and expose whoever replaces Luke Shaw we could get a result, likewise down our left Matt Targett needs to be alert to combat the threat that will be posed to him.

In the centre of the midfield Morgan Schneiderlin will do battle with Wanyama and I expect our Kenyan to have Romeu alongside him for this one after James Ward Prowse's disappointing game at West Brom.

Last season they came and beat us 2-1 but a look at the stats for that day last December shows how far we have come, back then we were without Toby Alderweireld and Jack Cork as well as Morgan Schneiderlin and our squad was woefully thin, the tow subs who came on were Mayuka and Jake Hesketh and unused subs were Harrison Reed, Matt Targett, Llloyd Isgrove and Florin Gardos, if Harry Redknapp was manager he would be saying we were down to the bare bones, certainly Ronald Koeman had no chance of really changing the game from the bench.

This time out though he has plenty of options, yes we are without Rya Bertrand and that will be a big miss, but we have far more options off the bench and that is a good thing.

Another good thing is that Robin Van Persie is no longer at Old Trafford and so subsequently wont be at St Mary's either, in the three games since we returned to the Premier League we hve conceded 6 goals at home to United and Van Persie has scored 5 of them.

So this is a real chance for Saints to truly kick star their season, its been a solid if unspectacular start, we now need to get a few wins on the board, if we do then we can match last seasons exploits.

A win today could propel us into the top six, although to do that it would need to be by at least three goals so unlikely, but any win would see us level on points with Everton in sixth and jump above Watford in 9th, even a draw would see us above Bournemouth and back in 11th which in itself would see us only two points behind the top six,

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