Wednesday, 6th Dec 2023 08:54
Last week Southampton showed the St Mary’s faithful their promotion credentials with two back to back victories, now we hit the road for a pair of tough but winnable trips to Watford & Coventry.
It’s only 4 games till Christmas on the Saints advent calendar and the first of them are in quick succession away from home, firstly the trip to Watford on Saturday, followed on Wednesday by our first visit to Coventry City in over a decade.
Watford have picked up a little in recent weeks with 3 wins and a draw in their last 5 games, this had dragged them up the table to 27 points and they will go into this game against Saints with confidence, especially since their home form is the basis for their resurgence.
Coventry on paper look am easier proposition, sitting in 17th on 22 points, they are in mid table limbo that could go either way, a couple of straight victories could push them into the promotion frame in a crowded division with only 8 points between Blackburn in 7th on 28 points and Huddersfield 1 place above the relegation zone on 20.
The Sky Blues home form is also good, just one defeat in 9 games, but 5 of those have been draws, they are difficult to beat on their own turf.
But it’s the bigger picture for Southampton, it is a war of attrition at the top of the table, over the past two months we have pulled ourselves right up the table with 8 wins and 3 draws out of 11 games, that is a superb record, but it is only just better than the 3 clubs above us in the same period, at the moment their is no room for manoeuvre, we just have to keep grinding out wins.
So these next two games are vital if we are to not only cement our place in the play off spots, but make inroads towards the top two positions.
We cannot afford to drop two many points against sides lower down the League, the only disappointment of the last 11 games is that of our 3 draws we dropped points in two of them against teams at the bottom of the League from a winning position.
The good news is that we are improving with every game, Saturday against Cardiff showed that, but we have to keep the juggernaut rolling.
Also our away form is almost identical to our home form, we have played one game less, a win at Watford will give us a mirror image of the 10 games played at home, 6 wins, 2 draws & 2 defeats.
We are more than capable of winning on the road and now we have to show it once more in these two fixtures.
Both will have their challenges and indeed we will truly be a good side if we don’t suffer more defeats in the next 6 months, the trick though is to do what we have done over the last 3 months, keep winning games and when a reversal comes, see it as a temporary blip, put it behind us and move on to the next game.
It is every game as it comes now and with 4 games packed into the next 14 days and indeed 7 in the next 22, this is going to be a period when squads are stretched to breaking point, I have always maintained that we have a squad that has quantity and quality, that will need to be proved not only in the next week, but through to the New Year.
Will Saints be up to the task, well they have proved a lot of doubters wrong in the last two months, they just need to keep proving them wrong.
