In our last game before the international break, we welcome Oxford United to St Mary’s, where our opponents are trying to achieve something they have never achieved in the history of football – a league double over Southampton.

This is Oxford’s second season of the Championship and having survived last year, would’ve been hoping for a slightly more comfortable ride this season, but that hasn’t happened. Credit to them though because up until recently they were looking like the second team nailed on for relegation along with Sheffield Wednesday, but they have managed ten points from the last four games, which gives them hope and also gives them a chance of having a say in one leg of Saints pursuit for a domestic treble this season – promotion, FA Cup, Pompey relegated. We are hoping of course the Oxford can finish above Pompey, which would almost certainly send our nearest and dearest neighbours down to League 1.

The hope he is of course they can do it in the games after today. On the one hand, their three recent wins have been against Blackburn, Preston and West Brom, teams that are struggling at the moment and they would’ve beaten Charlton but for a last-minute equaliser. On the other hand – we are of course a different level to those sides but as said, Oxford have already beaten us once this year so there should be no complacency on our part. That game at the Kassam on Boxing Day was probably the low point of the season, certainly a low for Tonda Eckert, who sent this up there with three at the back and Gavin Bazunu in goal and it was the goalkeeper who managed to dive over a lame shot in the last minute to give Oxford three points.

Back then Oxford were under the caretaker managership of Craig Short and now have new manager Matt Bloomfield, who is doing his best to give them a chance of survival. The main threat to us today will be from the scorer of that winning goal backing Boxing Day, Stan Mills, and Will Lankshere who is on loan from Spurs. They probably loaned him out for his personal development thinking that the Championship would be good for him, but it just may turn out that he gets some experience of the division that Spurs will be playing in next season.

Saints will be hoping for some good news from the training ground regarding the involvement of Ross Stewart and Leo Scienza but to be honest, with the international break coming and neither of those players being involved in it, it would be a surprise if either are risked. Tonda did his usual and though and added an element of mystery into the press conference by saying that it looks like one of them might be ready. Not a lot of commitment in that statement.

I have a feeling that today’s game is going to be another slog, much like Norwich a few days ago but we should of course have enough to get us over the line and remain in the play-off places over the international break. I found an interesting this week that our social media admin saw fit to put together a video of Norwich players booting ours all over the park at St Mary’s. It’s clear that someone at Saints is irritated at the way that the Canaries have gone about both games against us this season. It’s been fun seeing the mental gymnastics by Norwich fans in response to the video, justifying scything tackles from behind on Matsuki, elbows on Jander and trying to kick Edozie’s head off. Yes, we should probably be the bigger person and just shut up after taking the three points but also, maybe it’s a deliberate plan in case we have to play them in the playoffs…. Or maybe it’s just some knob head in the social media department going rogue.