Saints At Cardiff The Preview Friday, 7th Dec 2018 14:49 The first game in charge for Ralph Hasenhuttl and the big question is who has impressed him in his short time in charge and will be in his starting line up. Ralph Hasenhuttl will be seen in the flesh for the first time by 3,000 Saints fans at Cardiff on Saturday who will give him a rousing reception and the hope is that this alone will go long way to changing a toxic atmosphere surrounding the club into a positive one. Klopp of the Alps or KOTA has already enthused many and hopefuly included in that number will be a couple of dozen members of his squad. I would not expect him to stray too far off the beaten track for his first starting XI and he will still be guided by Kelvin Davis, but I do hope he can address the debacle that has been our central defence. After the Fulham game Wesley Hoedt became the scapegoat, yet in the two games we have been dropped him nothing changed in fact it got worse, we conceded five goals that epitomised the season, each scorer being unmarked from close range, that has to stop. I would hope he goes for Wesley Hoedt and Jannik Vestergaard as a pairing, they were ok in the opening games this season and perhaps the new manager can work with them and get them into some sort of solid duo, to be blunt the Yoshida/Stephens pairing has been used many times over the past two years and has not succeeded and is not good enough. Hoedt and Vestergaard could improve, certainly if Stuart Armstrong can come good so could Vestergaard and Hoedt. In the midfield Lemina should return after suspension the only question being whether its Davis or Ward Prowse whom he replaces, both had good enough games at Spurs to justify staying in the team. Otherwise the only other question is about who is up front, will Charlie Austin have impressed him or will he opt for Gabbadini, certainly it looks like Ings, Obafemi and Long are not going to be fit so he will have few options up front unless he opts to go completely left field and bring in someone like Sam Gallagher. The pattern is set though, the issues are centre of defence and central striker, we need to adapt and hope that our new man can inspire the team enough to carry us through against Cardiff. But there is a positive attitude at least around St Mary's and that has to be good, it is just a pity that we have so many injuries at the moment. Saints can win this and hopefully will, one point from our last three games does not reflect the effort we put in only the errors made at the back, it should have been at least four points and what a difference that would now make. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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