Stoke City arrive at St Mary's sitting at the top of the Championship after just two games, they take on a Southampton side that is in transition and may look different by September, so it is important to build a good foundation in August to prepare for departures.

Stoke arrive at St Mary's after winning their opening two games, but the big question is whether they are genuine promotion contenders or whether it is a false position after playing two of the sides who are struggling.

Their opening game saw them beat Derby County at home, but they struggled in that one being 1-0 down on 70 mins and not completing the last 2 goals in a 3-1 win until injury time.

Derby second game saw Coventry hit 5 goals past them at home to leave them in the bottom 3.

A 0-0 draw at Walsall saw the Potters win through on penalties before a 3--0 win at Sheffield Wednesday in the second League game, a side struggling due to ownership issues and a threadbare squad who also start this weekend in the bottom 3.

So is Stoke's position a false one, are they a side who are genuine promotion challengers or have they just got lucky in meeting two poor sides in their first two games.

The Potters avoided relegation only on the final day last season and have revamped their squad a little, with quite a few departures and arrivals, but after raking in around £6 million they have only spent around the same amount and most of their signings have been low cost or U21 players from Premier League clubs.

So they will arrive here as an enigma, our job is to show that our undoubted bigger and better quality squad can triumph and as we know in football that is far from being guaranteed.

But Will Still's side has made a good start, it has played two sides who have been tipped for the promotion race and the point at Ipswich was disappointing in the way we gave away the goal early doors, but overall a satisfactory point at a ground where not many teams will beat the home side this season.

Will Still will have both Damion Downs & Ross Stewart returning after illness up front and that is a boost and we could also see Thursday's signing Mads Roerslev come into the squad and he could well be a key player in the coming weeks.

To put it bluntly in the opening two games we have been a disorganised shambles at the back at times.

The opening 10 minutes at Ipswich could have seen us dead and buried before the game had barely started and even the win against Wrexham could have been much different if the Welsh side had taken a plethora of unmarked chances on goal, both from dead ball situations and most worrying on the break, something that happened at Ipswich as well.

Will Still changed his back three at Ipswich but it didn't completely sort the problem out, you have to play your best player in the best position and to be blunt Taylor Harwood-Bellis is our best central defender and was not in the centre but on the right.

This is not to say that Jack Stephens had a bad game, yes his leadership and organisational skills were found wanting, but his overall play wasn't too bad, if we had played THB in the centre of the three and Stephens on the right, I think we would have been better balanced, in fact I think Stephens's game would be the better for having the Captaincy removed from him, as under Russell Martin, the feeling is that he is not on the side on merit, but because he is Captain and that is wrong, I think he knows that and it weighs heavily on him.

So if we are going to play a back three this weekend, I have no problem keeping the same trio, just play THB in the centre.

But with the arrival of Mads Roerslev, we could see a change of formation to a flat back four, the Danish player is a traditional style right back by all accounts rather than a wing back, so I would not be too surprised to see us go into a back four with the new lad on the right, Jack Stephens and THB in the centre and Ryan manning on the left.

The problem against Ipswich was the left side, Joshua Quarshie was not having a great game, but the plus point was that he dug in, didn't lose confidence and ensured he just had poor game and not a disastrous one, in front of him the gung ho Welington did him no favours.

If we stick with the same formation as the first two games I would not be surprised to see Ryan Fraser switched to left wing back and Roerslev starting on the right.

We have more and better options than most of the sides in this division and that is perhaps the problem for Will Still, he does not as yet know his best side and more to the point he does not know who will be here in two weeks time, I think he is doing the right thing in playing Matteus Fernades & Tyler Dibling, two player who are likely not to be here in September, but if they go £80 million or so probably will be so we should not fear that.

In the meantime keep them in the squad and play them, at least in this game, Watford might be a different story with only two days of the transfer window left.

But whatever the situation we should have the firepower in the squad to beat Stoke City, that is with respect to the Potters, as I have said having a good squad is no guarantee of a win, but on paper we start the game as favourites despite Stoke sitting top of the pile.

It is results that matter not performances, as we did two years ago when we ground out results in August before players had left, we need to do the same now, utilise the likes of Fernandes and get points on the board whilst we are in limbo and then build on that with new signings if certain players do leave.

As it stands for this one Will Still has options in all areas, he now has seen his players in competitive action, he should now be starting to get his squad playing the way he wants, it is basically just a question of the manager making the right decisions in both team selection and tactics, we have to be organised from the first minute, we have had to play catch up in both of our opening two league games due to a lack of leadership and organisation, that is now twice, the manager has to make sure it doesn't keep happening.

All Photos Via Reuters

Dell1964 added 10:14 - Aug 22 Still still has to wait for "the window" to slam shut; before he can really formulate his own team, tactics, game plans etc. going forward
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Monksway added 12:31 - Aug 22 Four of our six centre backs have given up big chances so far but that is to be expected during the first games of the season. THB, Stephens, Edwards and Quarshie have all been guilty of over playing, missed passes, getting rolled etc. Woods did well against Northampton and Taylor has hardly played. They will all get better once things settle down and they get match fit. The question is which combinations will Still commit to after the window closes. Stephens and Quarshie presumably will stay because of their contracts. Taylor seems popular with Still. THB is on paper the best centre half and has been promoted twice but Wood and Edwards offer real potential and won't fancy another loan. Interesting dilemma - hope he makes the right choice.

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Bowlercow added 12:43 - Aug 22 This is a tough one to call Our defence has lacked organisation and blundered it's way through.Forget who they were playing,Stoke have strikers who are scoring.They will come here confident and up for it My gut feeling tells me we could well lose this one
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