Oxford United 1 v 0 Derby County EFL Championship Saturday, 18th October 2025 Kick-off 12:30 | ![]() |
Southampton V Swansea City The Preview Friday, 17th Oct 2025 08:26 Southampton's game against Swansea City is a crucial one for Will Still, indeed it is the start of a week in which they face 3 sides in or around them in the Championship mid table, but it is also a yardstick to judge our progress this season by. In the past two seasons Saints have faced Swansea 3 times, two years ago in the Championship they beat the Welsh club 5-0 at St Mary's on Boxing Day 2023 & then followed that up with a 3-1 win in South Wales. Last season we beat them 3-0 in the FA Cup at St Mary's in another convincing win, ironically there will be few players left from that game just 10 months ago who will start against the Swans this time out. The scorers in that game Kamaldeen Sulemana & Tyler Dibling (2 goals) are both no longer at the club & they are joined by another 5 players in the starting line up that day who are plying their trade elsewhere, indeed of the 9 players who were on the bench, 5 of them are either elsewhere or retired. So of a squad of 20 on the day, only 7 are going to be in consideration by Will Still for his squad on Saturday, of those only Ryan Manning, Adam Armstrong ,Nathan Wood & Alex McCarthy started at Derby, with Taylor Harwood-Bellis & Cameron Archer on the bench & Joe Aribo alienated by Will Still & not having featured in any squads this season, Ryan Fraser was out of favour back in January but will likely start tomorrow. Than perhaps highlights the changes that he happened in the Southampton squad and the work that the manager has had to do to re jig, however the honeymoon period is over on that one and he now needs to be getting results. So this game is crucial for him on several points, firstly it will give an indication of just where he is taking the team at the moment, secondly it will either push us to the fringes of the promotion hopefuls or leave us floundering. Thirdly it is a yardstick to measure him by, those 3 results give us a standard to judge him by, Swansea with respect are a solid Championship team, but not spectacular, if we don't beat them and for that matter beat them well, the hue & cry for Will Still's head will gain momentum. Not helping the matter is the fact that Danny Rohl ruled himself out of the Rangers job this week and in doing so fuelled rumours that he has been approached by another club, even putting that aside there are other experienced managers out of work and seeking employment at the moment and this is the start of the part of the season when clubs sack failing managers and replace them. But even if he wins on Saturday he has 3 games in a week that are all winnable and if we are to launch a credible promotion campaign, have to be won. So what will Will do this week, one change he will have to make is up front, Ross Stewart ruled out until the new year means that if he wants to stick with the formation of the past two games, he only has two options, the first is to throw in Damion Downs & then stick with him, that won't go down well with the fans, but we will truly find out if Downs has what it takes, something we can't really do after just 181 minutes of Championship football, in which to be honest he was surrounded by players who were not exactly shining either. The other option is to play Adam Armstrong as a centre forward and that means reshuffling the side yet again, Armstrong has just found his form, he is best playing off a centre forward, not being that man himself. Still's other option is to play Cameron Archer and again that means changing styles and reshuffling. So far Still has shown little faith in either his own selections or for that matter his own players and that is showing in the performances, we are a team playing with no confidence & fear, we are scared to try and win games because the manager chops & changes, we cannot find any rhythm and the players do the safe stuff and not the killer passes or shots than win games. That is the result of literally every player in the side knows he is only a poor 45 minutes away from either being dropped from the starting line up or hooked off in what is becoming the scattergun substitution policy that the manager employs. All of this sounds very damning of Will Still, but that is not my fault it is his, I would love this preview to have been about a 9 game unbeaten run, our position in the top two in the Championship and the free flowing football that we are playing, but it isn't and that is the fault of Will Still. Season's can change quickly though, in 8 days time we might well be in the play off positions after 3 straight wins and it might have finally clicked for the manager and his team, but as I sit here writing this, I would say that the chances are this won't happen, although I truly hope it does. If Southampton lose this game, then Will Still will be under fire, the game at Bristol City might well be make or break, I would say that the odds of Will Still winning 3 games in a row are a lot higher than the odds of him actually being manager after these next 3 games. So as I said a crucial week, i can't even start to predict where we will be in a weeks time. 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