The first of a two game run this week at St Mary's that can go a long way to propelling Saints towards safety.

The immediate reaction to the question "How many points should Saints get from this weeks two home games ?" would be six, however given that we have only managed 8 points from 12 games so far this would be a big ask, however it is achievable and although 4 points from the games would perhaps be more realistic both Newcastle and Norwich are beatable.

But we have to take every game as it comes and first up is Newcastle who arrive like a wounded dog with so many injuries, but as we all know wounded dogs are the most dangerous and that being the case we should take nothing for granted, Alan Pardew's comments in the press this week about his departure from St Mary's although guarded, reveal that there is no love lost between him and the Saints Chairman and that being the case he is clearly going to want to put one over us for old times sake.

Hopefully Pardew will get a warm welcome, he should do and deserves it, but we need to save most of it for the final whistle and make it an uncomfortable ninety on his return.

The key is once again going to be not changing our formula, four points from the last two games have been gained by sticking to what Nigel Adkins knows best and not tinkering too much with it, clearly there has been a change somewhere regarding team selection, especially when it comes to substitutions and this needs to continue.

There is speculation that Boruc might return to the Saints goal, four weeks training since his last game might well now have got him match fit, however given the vitriol that our crowd displays sometimes to the players they dont like, bringing Boruc back might split some of the united passion we need into two and for that reason I hope that we stick with Gazza.

Otherwise injuries aside I would hope to see the same starting line up as at Loftus Road and more of the same positivity.

One thing we do have to be aware of though is that as good as the win at QPR was we still made errors in defending, not least when Lallana let his man run off him for a free header for their goal, in this division you cannot switch off even for a minute especially against a side like Newcastle who have players capable of exploiting weakness.

Three points at the end of the day though would be a good start to the week and take us into the game with Norwich breathing down the necks of a few clubs, not least Newcastle themselves, if defeated by us we would only be three points behind them, Saints job is to concentrate on getting points on the board and dragging a few clubs into the relegation scrap and Newcastle like another half dozen who nobody has really tipped for relegation are at the moment in a dangerous spot, they went down a few years ago so they know how easy it is to sometimes get dragged into the vortex.

Key to the game will be as said cutting out the errors and doing what we do best rather than seemingly playing players for no appparent reason as was the case earlier in the season, keep it tight, take our chances and make the right changes at the right times, it served us well at Loftus Road, more of the same on Sunday. 

Photo: Action Images

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