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Saints will face an Inter Milan side in crisis on Thursday night with Frank De Boer facing the sack.
Saints were on the wrong end of 1-0 defeat at the San Siro a fortnight ago, a result which helped briefly ease the pressure on De Boer.
However, another loss to Sampdoria at the weekend has made it six defeats in eight in all competitions for Inter, and four in five in Serie A.
Inter are now mired in midtable some 13 points behind leaders Juventus and with speculation rife in the Italian media that De Boer could be fired before Thursday’s Europa League game at St Mary’s.
If he does somehow survive, defeat on Thursday will mean he is likely to face the axe in the upcoming international break, with the likes of Leonardo and Laurent Blanc already being touted to take over.
To add to De Boer’s woes, influential star Eder has fallen out with him after the Italian international reacted angrily to being substituted against Sampdoria, refusing to shake De Boer’s hand as he stormed off.
That comes on top of the animosity from Inter’s hard-core ‘Ultra’ support towards top striker Mauro Icardi over comments he made in a recent book.
It all seems to add up to a perfect storm for Saints to try and take advantage of when Inter pay an historic visit to St Mary’s on Thursday night.
It could be a decisive night in Group K, with Sparta Prague aiming to extend their advantage at the top as they host Hapoel Be’er Sheva having beaten the Israelis away from home last time out.
A win for either Saints or Inter would leave them in pole position to also get through heading into the last two matches.
De Boer was given a vote of confidence by the Inter board last week with club CEO Michael Bolingbro saying: “We’re very satisfied with Frank de Boer.
“He accepted to come here at the last minute and it’s not an easy situation. We’re 100 per cent behind him.”
However, another defeat saw De Boer fending off further questions about his future, insisting: “Talk to the board - I do my job.”
“This is just an issue of mentality," he said. “We have a lot of quality but we can’t do much when we have the mentality I saw in the first half.
“We have a problem at this moment. I said to the team during the break that we had to change and it looked like another team in the second half.
"I have faith that we can change this difficult time.
“As I said, I’ve seen a good team many times, but we must have the conviction to do it for 90 minutes, as [in the wins] against Torino and Juventus. We cannot always stay in this form.”
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