Alfie House the Southampton FC reporter for the Daily Echo has fuelled rumours that there are clique's in the St Mary's dressing room, but now he has dropped his biggest hint so far as to who are the problem players and once again the Club are gambling with it's future.

In an article that has in it's own on line front page list of current story's the strapline "Saints predicted team to face Sheffield United as Eckert makes dressing room point" The Daily Echo reporter Alfie House has suggested that there could be some big unexpected changes.

His predicted starting line up for the game against Sheffield United suggests that after sticking with Daniel Peretz, almost because he has no other options after the shipping out of Gavin Bazunu on loan, that he will stick with his back three but although he will retain THB & Nathan Wood, Jack Stephens will return in place of Quarshie.

In midfield there will be no Caspar Jander, no Tom Fellows and the quartet there will see Flynn Downes & Cam Bragg flanked by Manning & Elias Jelert.

The attacking trio will be Finn Azaz, Jay Robinson & Cameron Archer.

House does not elaborate much on why he thinks that is happening, but the suggestion is in that strapline "Makes Dressing Room Point"

So tonight we might drop our leading scorer Adam Armstrong who seems to be heading out of the door if rumours are to be be believed.

He will be joined on the sidelines by Leo Scienza, Caspar Jander & Tom Fellows all four players most would say not only the hub of our winning streak, but also the plus points of our recent bad run.

When you add the departures so far this January of Gavin Bazunu, Damion Downes, Ryan Fraser & Ronnie Edwards, a pattern is emerging and it is not one that makes good reading.

It seems to say that the club has given up all hope of promotion this season, so is going to gamble that it won't get relegated and it has already started a massive reorganisation of the squad for next season.

Given the previous suggestions from Alfie House as reported in our article Daily Echo Hints At Player Power Issues In Southampton Squad on 6th January, it seems that this could indeed be the case.

The most worrying rumour is that Adam Armstrong might be on his way to Wolves, it is hard to see any logic in this at the moment, the striker was the Captain on Saturday, as he has been whenever Jack Stephens has been dropped, so that surely suggests that he is not in any dressing room clique, but of he goes that leaves us fairly light up front, Ross Stewart has a track record of injuries and Jay Robinson although a talent, is not ready to lead the line yet.

So where is this all going ?

It is hard to say, but whatever way you look at it, it doesn't look good, loaning out your experienced & proven goalkeeper & replacing him with someone who is unproven at this level and has barely played at this level, has cost us already.

If these drastic changes are made, the club will dress it up as saving players for Sunday and there is some mileage in that, but if House is out and Tonda Eckert does omit arguably the four best performing players under his tenure in one go is strange, especially when coming on top of shipping out four experienced players in Gavin Bazunu, Ryan Fraser, Damion Downes & Ronnie Edwards who would normally be in line for a place in the starting line up in a situation like this.

The thing that will worry most supporters though is the fact that we are shipping out players without replacing them with someone better, we are in affect weakening the squad whatever way you look at it.

If we had won on Saturday against Hull City we would go into tonight's game only 7 points behind Preston North End in 6th place and with a game in hand.

So throwing in the towel as we seem to have done ahead of the game against Hull, by selling or loaning out 4 players seems a little premature, if we win tonight against Sheffield United we might well find ourself within 7 points, which could narrow if we also won at Pompey.

This season has a long way to go either looking upwards at the play offs or downwards at the relegation zone, why the hell are Southampton FC gambling on it's future !

All Photos Via Reuters