In fairness to Ivan Juric he has slowly stopped the goals leaking in the last 3 games and his side have put in 3 spirited performances, so after the draw with Crystal Palace, can Juric build on that for the trip to Spurs ?
Relatively speaking Saints are in one of their best runs of the season in terms of conceding goals, only 6 conceded in the last 3 games and two of those were penalties, one extremely dodgy, in the game against Liverpool, compare that to the 11 shipped in the 3 games prior to that trip to Anfield and it does at least give us hope that we can get the two points needed to avoid our unwanted record.
But next up is Tottenham Hotspur a team of fast track bullies and trip to them often end in defeat.
Their is hope though and Spurs are having a dreadful season by their perceived standards, they go into the weekend sitting in 14th place with only 34 points, in another season they might have been looking over their shoulders at the bottom 3, but not this one.
Any hopes of European competition though are long gone, at least in the Premier League, they do however have a chance if they can win the Europa League and the fact that they have a home game against Eintracht Frankfurt only 4 days after our visit could offer us hope that they will perhaps rest a few players.
Whispers in the North London rumour mill suggest that Ange Postecoglou could drop 3 key members of his team, even though he does have several players out for the visit of Saints, the likes of Micky Van de Ven, Son Heung-min and James Maddison are being tipped to be rested and the manager has already confirmed in his press conference that he will be making some changes.
Spurs home form has not been great, they have won just 5 Premier League games, drawn another 3 and lost 7, they don't have trouble scoring goals, the 30 scored in those 15 games highlights their attacking prowess, only Liverpool & Manchester City have scored more at home, but the 26 conceded at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, is the 2nd worst of all the top 14 clubs and even Everton blow them have conceded less.
So the stats do offer us hope as we go into the games, so the question is can Ivan Juric build on the progress made in the Crystal Palace game.
The key will not to tinker too much with the starting line up against the Eagles, the back 3/5 looked pretty solid after a shaky start and the central midfield were hard working and paved the way for the glorious draw.
The only two positions that should be under review are the two attacking ones, Tall Paul Onuachu scored a decent goal against Palace and worked hard, but he was often out of the game and away at Tottenham we cannot afford to carry any passengers.
Likewise Kamaldeen Sulemana, he made some promising runs, but there was no end product, Ivan Juric needs to consider whether one or both of them should be dropped for the trip to Tottenham.
Cameron Archer & Tyler Dibling would be the two obvious candidates, but if we want to get off to a strong start then we could also consider restoring Joe Aribo to the midfield or perhaps bringing in Welington at left back and using Ryan Manning in a more advanced position.
I won't even insult those players that Juric seems to have now ostracised completely by suggesting that they should be in the starting line up or even the squad, take a bow Lallana, Taylor, Groenbaek, Bella-Kotcap & Fraser.
So there are a few rays of hope for the travelling Saints fans that after the disappointment of that late equaliser on Wednesday that cost us overtaking that points record, that this could be the game that we could do it in.
Unlikely if we take the name Tottenham Hotspur alone, but based on their trials and tribulations this season, you never know.
All Photos Via Reuters
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