Saints V West Ham United The Preview Friday, 13th Dec 2019 11:08 Yet another six pointer at St Mary's and Saints need to build on two straight wins at home and pull clear of the bottom three. It is hard to say anything different in the preview of this game than I said for the visits of both Watford & Norwich, it is exactly the same scenario and we are in the position we are due to our continued failure to hold leads late on away from home and because we keep making individual errors and the problem is this will keep happening until we are in a position to bring in new faces. What has changed in recent weeks is that Ralph Hasenhuttl has learn't from the error of the past three months, when he came in a year ago, he kept us up and did so by sticking to a formula, that mean't working with a nucleus of his squad and not chopping and changing. Earlier in the season he seemed to lack direction, possibly because of the influence of his inexperienced coaching staff, now he is going with his own gut feeling and getting back to basics, he is not chopping and changing personnel even when they make errors, that must be frustrating for him after three late errors in the last three away games cost us four points that would have seen us comfortably in mid table. So I suspect that he will not change much for the visit of the Hammers, injuries accepted, it needs to be the same intensity both on and off the pitch. Nathan Redmond has come in for some criticism of late, but he is not shirking and still getting and making goal scoring opportunities, last season he was our best player by a country mile and as they say form is temporary and class is permanent, that is why Ralph sticks by him. It is going to be another low attendance and we need to use that as a spur to get another three points, the crowd needs to be behind the team as it was in the previous two games and it will be helped by the absence of the moaners, sorry if that offends some, but that is the truth, an attitude seems to be prevailing in the fan base that this is a time for the tough to get going in supporting the team and for the rest to just get going as they have done for the past two. We might be in trouble, but the best football matches are those when there is something in it and this game certainly has that, managers say to players don't leave anything on the pitch, come off it at the end emotionally and physically drained and that needs to be the same for the crowd. 90 minutes of support will hopefully yield three points and if it doesn't then we can worry about it after the final whistle. The Hammers will be more scared of us than them, they like us are an up and down side and sit only a point above us, we need to change that in a positive way for us and leapfrog them, their manager is under fire and their players just as low on confidence as ours where a few weeks ago, we need to put the pressure on them and break their fragile confidence. So here we go again, we need to make this one of the games we get away with our errors and win the game convincingly. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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