Saints travel up to Elland Road hoping to win a Premier League game for the first time in 8 outings, once again we have injury issues, but then again so do Leeds, can Saints win and leapfrog the home side and back up to 12th in the table.

The winless run has been a worry, but unlike some of our winless runs in the past there are mitigating circumstances, when Saints lost 8 of their first 11 Premier League fixtures, winning only one and drawing 2 of the other 3, that was a worry as we weren't in an injury crisis, this was our full first team squad failing badly to adapt to the Premier League.

But this crisis is different, we have so many injuries and not just in general but in key areas.

But we have turned a corner, we have players back from injury and the emergence of Mohammed Salisu is finally an addition to the squad as in Minamino who has only joined in the last three weeks.

So although the injury crisis is still critical. it has eased and that showed against Chelsea where although we were understandably on the back foot, we remained solid and held our shape and deserved a draw.

Now is the time to start to kick on with confidence, the latest stat being banded about is the one that says we have lost the dropped the most points from winning positions, of course this is not a great stat, but its a better one than just losing games as it shows we have the ability to score.

But there is a reason for this and of late it is due to the fact that we have no options off the bench at the moment , we run ourselves into the ground and then have no one we can bring on for fresh legs.

Back in the tail end of last year, we did have options, Ibrahima Diallo for example, but we haven't had that of late.

It has been a bad run, but the Manchester United game was the only one where we were actually poor, but even that had mitigating circumstances with a squad down to the bare bones as well as two sending offs and poor Var decisions not affecting the score but certainly the result.

We go to Leeds tonight still five men down, but now Ralph does have some options to change things as he did on Saturday against Chelsea.

The first question though is does he keep the formation against Chelsea or does he make a few changes.

It will be interesting to see what he does at the back, will he keep the back three and if so does he swap Moussa Djenepo for Stuart Armstrong or will be revert to a back four with Jan Bednarek playing as a right back, again he has to choose if Armstrong comes back to the side and who he replaces.

In many respects Leeds are a team that will suit us, they attack in numbers and are vulnerable on the break.

They concede goals at an alarming rate and only West Brom have conceded more.

Our goals against column isn't great, but take out that United game and we are in the top half of Premier League defences, so we are a better defence than our goals against column suggests.

The trick will be like the Chelsea game, we have to deal with them coming at us in waves, but unlike Saturday when we get the ball we will have the chance to use it more and catch them on the back foot,

So there is plenty of things to be confident about going into this fixture and we are stronger than we were a month ago with the arrival o Minamino and the emergence of Salisu.

But the main issue will be that conceding second half goals problem, we are going to have to work hard in midfield and in the centre we have no one who could replace either JWP or Romeu as they tire in the later stages.

Ralph will have to urge his troops on and say one big effort and then we have 6 days off and that is a rare event these days.

Some fans have been worrying about relegation, we are far from that position at the moment, we should be looking upwards, personally I am not bothered about League position, there is a log jam, I want to see us reach Wembley firstly in the semi and hopefully in the final, yes it won't be the occasion that we would hope for, but the record books will not record that, If we are to win a trophy I would gladly give up supporters being there for the chance to do it.

But firstly we have to take every game as it comes, there are 14 games left and in the league we need to win 2 of them and that along with a couple of draws would guarantee safety , but we do want better than that and a win against Leeds would be the first step back to winning ways.

Photo: Action Images

WestSussexSaint added 13:20 - Feb 23 I dont expect much departure from the starting XI against Chelsea. I remain unconvnced by Redmond as the second stiker but this opponent may actually suit him better with the space they allow around and behind their defence. Hopefully we have Armstrong on the bench which provides another option in the second half if needed. Just one point on your preview Nick in that I actually think our worst performance in this recent run wasnt at Man U but rather Newcastle. 0-9 is a shocking scoreline but as you point out there were plenty of mitigating circumstances. That didnt apply at Newcastle where we had some players back from injury and had the referee decisions go in our favour.

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saintmark1976 added 13:54 - Feb 23 The only objective that matters tonight is that we don’t loose this game in hand on Fulham. W B A and Sheffield Utd are as good as relegated. The same doesn’t apply to Fulham. I hope that Ralph considers this when picking his team and deciding tactics before and during the game.
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DellBoyWally added 14:10 - Feb 23 All this talk of playing into our hands, gifting us space and goals. You think their manager hasn't worked that out for himself? Bielsa is just going to let us do what we like, run riot, score a hatful and concede none!! Or maybe, just maybe, he has some tactics of his own........!
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SanMarco added 14:24 - Feb 23 It has been interesting that the 'R' word (relegation not referee!!) has been reasonably scarce on these pages. Normally you would say a side on 29 after 17 games would need to break all sorts of diastrous records to go down but, let's face it, breaking records we would rather have not broken has been a major feature under Ralph!! I would like to see any concerns put to bed quickly. If the point against an under-performing Chelsea really is the start of a recovery then we need to get something from matches like this. Of course we won't go down but let's make sure sooner rather than later!! If we go to Bramall Lane still on 30 that match will be not far short of a relegation match for us as well as them.

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