Saints step out at St Mary's looking to make it 4 straight League home wins and in doing so start to move closer to the promotion positions even accounting for the 4 point deficit, can they do it ? Yes they can !

Bristol City have made a decent start to the season, they arrive at St Mary's in 7th place and with a game in hand on current leaders West Brom, they could potentially go top in mid week if they beat us on Saturday and then Lincoln City on Tuesday night.

They also have in their ranks Dom Ballard, who has scored 2 goals for them this season, he might perhaps have got more, but so far has only started one League game, coming off the bench in the other 4.

Expect to see him step on to the St Mary's pitch somewhere between 65 & 75 minutes.

There are some who have clamoured for the signing of Ballard in the summer, indeed question why we let him go a year ago. But in truth would he have been a starter ? when he left permanently to Orient, we had better options, not least Adam Armstrong a prolific scorer at Championship level.

Ballard had scored just 6 League goals in his career encompassing 45 League appearances on loan at Reading, Blackpool & Cambridge United, he didn't have the stats and it was time to let him go and get a fee.

He found his niche at Leyton Orient and good luck to him, it will be good to see him flourish in the future (Obviously not against us) but it was the right move not only for Saints, but the player himself, he needed to drop a division and start scoring goals to kick start a career that was stalling after scoring on his Saints debut at Cambridge in the League cup 4 years ago.

So Bristol City arrive in good form, like us they haven't been beaten since the opening weekend of the season and they have wracked up a draw at Birmingham and then 3 straight wins leading up to Saturday's meeting.

So it will not be an easy task, but then again Millwall rocked up top of the League when they came to St Mary's and they are the team that beat Bristol City on the opening day and then Swansea on Tuesday night, we don't fear those in good form.

It is hard to see much of a change to the starting line up from the team that beat the Swans, but as we know Tonda Eckert likes to keep the fans guessing as well as the opposition.

At the back it will be interesting to see whether there will be a rotation system between Nathan Wood and Jack Stephens, I wouldn't rule it out.

I would hope that there is no messing with the central trio of JWP, Downes & Azaz, that is our key to success.

Out wide Leo Scienza is a nailed on starter, but on the right side I would not be surprised to see Kuryu Matsuki be switched in for Tom Fellows and up front Cyle Larin has to start, he is the man in form.

If there is to be a change, then I would hope that it is just the one, Matsuki for Fellows, no reflection on Fellows who I think has had decent games when he has been in the side, it's just keeping things fresh.

Will Caspar Jander feature ? probably not, he seems to have been on the verge of a comeback for 6 weeks now, we have no real need to risk him if he truly is not 100%.

Perhaps Bristol City fans will look down the table and see us in 13th place think this game will be easy for them, but the reality is that we have made the 2nd best start to the season so far, but that doesn't mean we should underestimate the Robins ourselves, they have played a game less and if like us they had played in the midweek just gone and won it, then they would now be top.

On the face of it this game looks like it could be a draw, but if we are to replicate last season (without the spying and getting kicked out of the play off final bit) then we have to win games like this, we have to show our class and win these games.

Key to this game is our WAD in midfield that is Ward-Prowse - Azaz - Downes, but the two areas that to concern me is our ability to firstly rest Larin as we did last season when we rotated him with Stewart and at the back finding a good partner for Keven Schlotterbeck who has looked the real deal aside from a couple of dodgy moments in his first couple of games.

In Tonda We Trust !

Via Reuters

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