WHEN Sky Sports decided to put Everton’s visit to St Mary’s on it’s ‘Super Sunday’ television schedule, there was one reason why they chose it and presumably believed it was going to be super in some way.
It was all about the return of Ronald Koeman to former club Saints with his shiny new, expensively-assembled Everton, who were meant to be putting the frighteners on the top six this term.
But Koeman was sacked last month and his shiny new Everton have been rotten. Now, Saints v Everton looks anything but super.
Everton have not won any of their last 14 Premier League away games, making it their worst run on the road in 20 years.
The Toffees also have one of the worst defences in the top flight, having let in 24 goals in 12 games. Only West Ham have conceded more.
On top of that, they have not kept a clean sheet since the opening day of the season and have conceded the most fouls in the division (157).
They’ve spent a huge amount of money but are now in serious trouble in the bottom half of the division.
And they have no manager, either.
At the time of writing David Unsworth remains in caretaker charge, even though Koeman was sacked a month ago now.
That’s four weeks and an international break without managing to hire a new boss. Marco Silva has been one target for the job but they’ve seem to have been out-priced on that one by his current club Watford.
No doubt about it, Everton are in a crisis coming to St Mary’s on Sunday and because of that they have handed Saints a big opportunity to avert their own crisis.
This is a Saints team who have scarcely scored and have won just four of their 16 home matches in 2017.
Their scoring issues have been well-documented and life under Mauricio Pellegrino is not going to plan at the moment at all.
Saints have not scored in their last two matches and failed to even get a shot on target against Liverpool last time out.
They have scored just six goals from open play in 12 matches (nine in total) and, to heap misery on it all, Saints have won just four of their last 20 games.
Of their 16 home matches this calendar year, they have not scored in ten of them. It’s little wonder the Saints supporters are turning on the new manager, the team and the board.
On top of all this, they are now on one of their hardest runs in Premier League history, too, with five of the top six still to play before the New Year.
But they face Everton here. And Everton are not good. Everton are in a bad way.
Saints aren’t in fantastic shape, either, but perhaps Everton’s are worse problems and that can, potentially, be Saints’ gain.
This game is as must-win as it gets for both sides.
A victory for Saints might snuff out the negativity a bit and build the momentum they’ve been missing for some time. Boy do they need it right now.
But they welcome Everton, who have been terrible at the back.
If that’s not an opportunity for confidence-bereft strikers to get firing, then what is?
Manolo Gabbiadini is Saints’ top-scorer this term with three goals, while fellow striker Charlie Austin has one (from the penalty spot), while Shane Long hasn’t scored since February.
Pellegrino has challenged himself to break this scoring problem and knows the Toffees game may well present his strikers with a chance.
“Finishing (in a game) is something that doesn’t have a straight relationship with a training session, for example,” he says.
"You can finish from Monday to Sunday, but it’s impossible to reproduce the same stress, anxiety they have during a competitive game.
"Sometimes it depends on confidence, our offence. As a manager our job is how can we create chances, arrive in the final third, how we can play triangles in wide areas, cross, cut-back, pick out team-mates.
“Finishing is something that’s really difficult to translate from the training session to the game.”
So how can this problem be corrected?
“Looking for new solutions, trying and trying and trying, and suddenly, it’s something that can happen,” he explains.
“This is a nice challenge. We’ve got players who are very good technically, and we have to improve our character, to be more clinical in this situation. It’s mental too. It’s a mix between preparation and mentality.”
In Pellegrino’s opening 13 games he’s struggled to really stamp his identity on the team.
He admits that sometimes Saints are “a long, long” way from playing in his image.
“At some moments yes - in some moments no,” he said, when asked if we’re now seeing a ‘Pellegrino team’.
"In some moments I’m happy; in some we’ve got a long, long process to improve.
"The players are not machines. They’re human beings playing football, and sometimes they’re confident, sometimes not.
"Sometimes the opponent’s better than you. We always have to analyse the game with 22 players, not 11.
“The problem in Southampton is we’re analysing just 11; in Everton they’re analysing just 11, but we have to see one against the other, what the opponent did to be better than you, what you are doing to try to beat them.”