Southampton V Blackburn Rovers The Preview
Friday, 15th Dec 2023 18:46

After a disappointing performance at Coventry, Saints regroup and take on Blackburn at St Mary's hoping to make it five wins in a row at home and 14 unbeaten in total.

For 12 years from 1992-2005 Saints v Blackburn was a regular fixture, so it makes it surprising to consider that this is our first meeting in any competition in almost 19 years.

Over those fixtures Saints just have the edge in that both sides have won 17 League meetings and drawn 10, but we have beaten them in both times we have met in the FA Cup.

A fair few Saints supporters will have been at Ewood Park on a cold Friday night televised game in 1984, won by a David Armstrong goal, but I would doubt not many in St Mary's this weekend will have been present at the Dell in 1948 for a 3-2 win.

Hopefully the David Armstrong goal 40 years ago will be a good omen and no one will be complaining if it is another Armstrong who leads the goalscoring this weekend, either Adam or Stuart.

The good news coming out of the Southampton camp though is that Flynn Downes should be fit for the game, in my opinion, up until his absence for the trip to Watford he had become the pivotal player in the midfield, a combination of energy and experience that saw us hone the possession football game.

Reinstating Downes into the side won't be a hard decision for Russell Martin, the only question is who will drop out, for me both Stuart Armstrong and Will Smallbone have been a bit too pedestrian of late, although in fairness that could be due to Downes absence, I would suspect that one of them will step down.

But Martin perhaps has to consider what else he needs to do to pep up his side as they head into the 14th game of our unbeaten run, a popular decision amongst some fans would be to see Ryan Manning dropped and James Bree Reinstated, but is being defensive the answer for this game and it should be remembered that Manning was outstanding in the last home game, so I would expect Manning to hold his place for this game.

Up front the only guaranteed spot is Adam Armstrong's and it is up front that Martin has a decision to make, who does he play alongside AA, does he keep face with Che Adams or does he move Adam Armstrong to the centre.

In line to start alongside the leading scorer, Che Adams aside, will be Joe Aribo, Ryan Fraser & Sam Edozie .

Ryan Frazer would be an obvious choice, but in truth his best games have been off the bench, likewise Edozie, so I would perhaps suggest that it will be Che Adams in the middle with Adam Armstrong & Joe Aribo flanking.

Blackburn arrive at St Mary's in 9th on 31 points and are one of 12 clubs within 10 points of Sunderland in the final play off spots, they harbour hopes of moving up the table, but we have to face them without fear, as we did against West Brom, Bristol City & Cardiff City where we concentrated on our game with a confidence to get the job done.

You would think reading Saints fan sites that we are a club in freefall, well if drawing two games is freefall Ill settle for that, this is going to be a long season and we are not even half way yet, we have to have patience.

Like the game against Cardiff an early goal would be good to settle the nerves, but if it doesn't come then we have to sit tight.

One thing we have to cut out though is complacency, sometimes we have tried to be too clever when you have put your foot through the ball, certainly the late goals against Huddersfield & Watford were due to that and at Coventry we tried to run the ball out of defence and ran into trouble.

Some are already saying that Leicester & Ipswich are uncatchable, but we don't know that and until it is mathematically impossible we just have to keep digging away, secure a play off place and then see what happens above us.

Photo: Action Images

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