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Southampton At Burnley The Preview
Thursday, 21st Apr 2022 07:45

Saints head up to Lancashire with the opportunity to jump into 9th place after last nights results, but they will go into a cauldron at Turf Moor with Burnley desperate to reel in Everton.

Last night's results went mainly for Saints, although Newcastle beating Palace meant that we dropped to 13th with the Geordies continuing their purchasing of League places.

But Saints can strike a blow for the underdogs tonight by beating Burnley and in doing so jumping up to 9th in what is now a very congested middle of the Premier League.

But it will have to be done the hard way, Burnley start the evening 4 points behind Everton and will be keen to reduce that gap to only 1 and give themselves the chance to overtake the Toffee's at the weekend.

So we can expect a hostile welcome at Turf Moor although the question will be whether their caretaker manager can motivate them in the way Sean Dyche can and indeed if the departure of the longest serving manager in the Premier League will alter their style of play.

From our perspective Ralph will be buoyed by the result against Arsenal and it will be interesting what formation he will play, certainly the robust style of Lyanco will suit this game, so I would not be surprised to see him keep his place in the team.

In midfield I think we need to rest Moi Elyounoussi, this type of physical game will not suit his style, he would be better rested for Brighton and perhaps bring in Ibrahima Diallo who is more defensive minded.

We are going to need every ounce of our spirit and will have to match the home side for workrate and concentrate for the full 90 minutes plus injury time.

But we can turn the situation to our favour, Burnley will be under pressure from the crowd, if we can draw the sting from the early part of the game and get the game under our control, then the crowd could weigh heavily on their own players and make it difficult for them to play, we have seen this with our own team at St Mary's in the past and we have to try and recreate this for the home team tonight.

If we can do that then we can win this game and take a big step towards a top 10 finish.

Ralph Hasenhuttl has said he intends to play his strongest team in each of the last six games, that doesn't necessarily mean that what he considers his best team will coincide with every Saints fans version.

But he proved on Saturday that sometimes the best players sometimes don't make the best team depending on who the opposition is.

Tonight will go a long way towards deciding where Saints will ultimately finish, lets hope that we are up to the task.

Photo: Action Images



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YosemiteSaint added 23:10 - Apr 21
Two thoughts:

1. I don't think Ralph watches film of upcoming opponents.

2. When we have eleven players on the pitch, we are expert at making it look like we've only 9 players on the pitch.
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