When we played Stoke City at St Mary’s, it was the first reality check when we suddenly realized that, oh hang on a minute, we might in fact be a bit shit this season and Will Still is not the second coming. That defeat, where we basically got outplayed by a club that had finished consistently in the bottom half of the Championship over the last few seasons, was initially written off as a blip until we had a few more.

Both teams have come a long way since that particular game, with Stoke being in and around the play-off places all season and Saints meandering along between about 10th and 21st. Stoke’s form has tailed off a bit in the last few weeks due to falling foul of the Championship curse of having half of their squad injured. With any luck, the former attack that gave us so many problems at St Mary’s – Sorba Thomas, Bae Jun Ho, Devin Mubama and Million Manhoef – will be somewhat depleted. In the last game, which was away at Birmingham. Thomas in fact, was playing at right back and was getting absolutely roasted by Birmingham’s left winger, so it’ll be interesting to see if they try and do that match-up with Leo Scienza.

If Thomas is in his regular position of left-wing, then he will be up against James Bree who he absolutely tortured earlier on in the season whilst playing against Charlton. One Stoke player who always gives us problems as Viktor Johansson but he won’t be playing today because of course, they signed Gavin Bazunu from us to cover for his long-term injury. Baz wouldn’t have been able to play against us today of course, but in any case, he is injured and rumoured to be out for the next six weeks.

It’s hard to know what Tonda will do this week of course. He will probably try and be too clever as usual. The press conferences leading up to the game didn’t really yield any clues and were the usual collections of politicians answers and word salad and he seems incapable of answering a direct question with an answer. I can’t imagine that our team will be too different to the one that started at Fratton Park on Sunday, but I would certainly expect Tom Fellows and Ross Stewart to be the most likely to come into contention.

If Stewart plays, it will probably be at the expense of Adam Armstrong who, with one week left of the transfer window, has been linked with a move away. As far as I know there have not been any definite destinations mentioned bar Wrexham, but they get linked with everyone. It seems that his agent has got busy and the implication is that he’s available. If we sell him without having a replacement lined up then we are obviously giving up on this season as everyone knows, there is no value in the January market, so many player you want is £5 million more expensive than he should be, but having said that, Armstrong will go for a bigger fee now then he will in the summer, but it is still the summer when I expect him to move on. He’s always been a strange player, obviously not good enough for the Premier League but a confident Arma is worth £15 million whereas the version we have right now, most definitely is not. Another one of our strikers is attracting interest and that’s Cameron Archer. If he left it would be a much more palatable loss than if Arma left, but the interest allegedly comes from the blue half of Glasgow so that immediately puts doubt in my mind because Rangers only ever seem to offer vibes rather than actual money in any sort of realistic quantity.

Also attracting interest is THB, and this, for me, would be the biggest loss of the lot because he is by far our best central defender, and a centre-back pairing of Jack Stevens and Nathan Wood doesn’t even bear thinking about and would make me more worried about the prospect of getting dragged into the relegation fight. The interest in THB comes from two clubs who have a very high chance of being in the Championship next season: Burnley and West Ham. West Ham are, of course, the biggest piss-takers when it comes to offers for players, and there are rumours in some news outlets that they want to take THB on loan. What a great deal for us that is. If, in fact, they are keen to put in an actual offer to buy the player, then I’m sure it will be well below the £20 million that we paid for him, and I really don’t think we should part with him at this stage of the season unless they or anyone else offers silly money. We have been linked with a young Croatian centre-back called Branimir Mlacic, who has only played five first-team games for his Croatian side, Hajduk Split, so he cannot be seen as ready for the here and now in the Championship if it all comes to pass.

Jack Stephens has just given an interview where he’s hinted that we are still looking for promotion. Do we still have a promotion tilt in us? Personally, I would be surprised given the inconsistency we have shown all season but if there is any thought of making a late bid for the playoffs, then we have to target this game for a win today. Stoke have not been great over the last few weeks and as said, have a few players injured. The result of this game and the next few days on the transfer market, will tell us if the board are happy to put all their eggs in the basket for next season or whether they want to have a go this season. Also there are the outgoings – can Johannes Spors or Rasmus Ankersen (or whoever does it and no one is sure) finally help the club lose the liability of having to find Aribo and Edozie sized wages every week.

I am preparing to be underwhelmed on all fronts but hope to be pleasantly surprised.