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Southampton at home kicking off at 5:20 p.m. My first thought was that I'm pleased it isn't the other way round but on reflection it does mean that the Southampton fans won't have to get up quite so early and despite their late return it is on the one weekend when they will be afforded an extra hour in bed on Sunday morning.
Yes, the Sky cameras are here, in the new Football League tea time slot to try and compete with Setanta, who today are showing the Premier League game between Portsmouth and West Ham.
The Saints fans are coming to watch a side that seems to have the knack of scoring goals but certainly has the knack of conceding them. Only three Championship teams have scored more this season but no side has conceded more.
Manager George Burley made massive changes to his squad during the summer, although some of that was forced on him with players sold because of the finances at St. Mary's. Gareth Bale went to Spurs for £5 million and Chris Baird made the move to Fulham for over £3 million.
Pele was sold to West Brom whilst Martin Cranie and Leon Best both decided their futures were elsewhere and moved on Bosmans to Portsmouth and Coventry respectively. Striker Kenwyne Jones refused to play for them until he got his move to RK Sunderland, and that brought in a further £6 million.
It has all resulted in Burley bringing in eleven new players since the end of last season including six of them on loan. Amongst those six are Marek Saganowski (he'd ended the 2006/07 season with them on loan). He'd been targeted by the Clarets during the summer has had Andrew Davies who arrived from Middlesbrough on loan recently. They also signed our defender Wayne Thomas for whom we received £1.2 million from the Saints.
The full list of incoming players, including the loan signings, is shown below.
Youssef Safri from Norwich
Wayne Thomas from Burnley
Jason Euell from Middlesbrough
Stern John from RK Sunderland
Adam Hammill from Liverpool (loan)
Gregory Vignal from Lens (loan)
Alan Bennett from Reading (loan)
Christian Dailly (loan)
Philip Ifil (loan)
Andrew Davies (loan)
It has been a mixed start this season, but they have won three of their last five league games and that includes wins over Sheffield United and West Brom, the first of them coming away from home against Bryan Robson's team.
The last time Burnley beat Southampton our goalscorers were Peter Noble and Ray Hankin. That was in September 1976, surely the time has come to get that much awaited win against them.
Inigo Idiakez is a player that has caused us problems more than once in previous seasons with Derby County, usually when they have won set pieces giving him the opportunity to have a shot at goal.
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The 34-year-old Spanish midfielder has struggled to win a place in the Southampton side since signing for them a year ago, but he's been back in the side recently and in midweek made an influential appearance as a substitute.
Idiakez has spent most of his career in his homeland with Real Sociedad and from 1994 he was a regular in their side in La Liga. He dropped out of the top division in the summer of 2002, playing a full season on loan with Real Oviedo before signing permanently for Rayo Vallecano in 2003.
No longer wanted by Vallecano his future looked uncertain, but in the summer of 2004 he was snapped up by Derby boss George Burley. He was one of the most important players in the side that reached the play offs but didn't offer quite as much in the second season under Phil Brown and Terry Westley as Derby struggled.
He moved to Southampton early last season, again signed by Burley, but he was never able to establish himself there and even had a loan spell with QPR during the latter part of last season.
Back at St. Mary's he's still not a regular, but he's expected to be part of the side today, and we know to our cost just how effective he can be, particularly from set pieces.
George Burley is disappointed that he'll be without Youssef Safri today. He's described him as their best, and most consistent, player this season but he starts a three match ban after raising his hands to Bristol City's Lee Johnson, a player who does appear to fall over rather easily.
There is some good news for Burley with former Claret Wayne Thomas expected to be fit to play against his former club. He was struggling for defenders at Ashton Gate and Jhon Viafara was forced to play there. He'll now fill the gap left by Safri's absence with Thomas returning after recovering from that back injury that caused him problems when he was at Burnley. Burley will hope that Thomas is passed fit. He is already without Darren Powell and Andrew Davies with injury.
Southampton are expected to line up: Kelvin Davis, Philip Ifill, Wayne Thomas, Christian Dailly, Gregory Vignal, Nathan Dyer, Jhon Viafara, Jason Euell, Inigo Idiakez, Stern John, Bradley Wright-Phillips. Subs from: Bartosz Bialkowski, Alan Bennett, Adam Hammill, Jermaine Wright, Mario Licka, Rudi Skacel, Andrew Surman, Marek Saganowski, Grzegorz Rasiak.
The doubts for the Clarets surround the fitness of Steve Caldwell and Stephen Jordan. Caldwell missed the win over Norwich with a thigh strain picked up during training the day before whilst Jordan did well to complete the game after getting an early ankle injury.
Caldwell is rated doubtful but Jordan does seem to have a better chance of playing and keeping up his ever present record this season. If that's the case then I expect the side to be the one that started so well in the win over Norwich and that will be:
Gabor Kiraly, Graham Alexander, Clarke Carlisle, David Unsworth, Stephen Jordan, Wade Elliott, John Spicer, Chris McCann, Kyle Lafferty, Robbie Blake, Andy Gray. Subs from: Brian Jensen, Jon Harley, James O'Connor, Alan Mahon, Steve Jones, Ade Akinbiyi.
No matter which way you look at it, this fixture last season was dramatically changed when Wayne Thomas received the fourth red card of his Burnley career after an off the ball incident as we awaited a Burnley free kick.
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Whether he deserved it or not, and I've yet to meet anyone who actually saw what happened, it was ridiculous of Thomas and he left us to fight out most of the game with ten men. And worse still, a minute later and Southampton were level through Grzegorz Rasiak, the player whose actions had brought about the first of those red cards a year earlier.
We didn't let the Saints get any sort of grip on the game and incredibly Andy Gray headed us back in front from a Frank Sinclair free kick. Gray was on the right hand side of midfield with Gifton playing up front in a 4-4-1 formation, and it was working.
It was Gifton who came so close to extending the lead eight minutes into the second half, but Kelvin Davis saved well, and Southampton went straight down and equalised again. And with seventeen minutes to go Rasiak got his second to win it for them.
It was cruel, we didn't deserve it, we'd played so well, and despite the defeat the players received a much deserved standing ovation at the end. Fingers were pointed at Thomas, I'm not so sure the Burnley crowd ever did forgive him, but also remember the performance of Darren Drysdale that warm afternoon in Burnley, he had an absolute shocker.
The teams were;
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Wayne Thomas, John McGreal, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott (Frank Sinclair 27), James O'Connor, Micah Hyde (Alan Mahon 80), Steve Jones (Chris McCann 68), Andy Gray, Gifton Noel-Williams. Subs not used: Stephen Foster, Kyle Lafferty.
Southampton: Kelvin Davis, Jermaine Wright, Chris Baird, Pele, Chris Makin, Djamel Belmadi (Nathan Dyer 78), Inigo Idiakez, Jhon Viafara, Rudi Skacel (Andrew Surman 84), Grzegorz Rasiak, Bradley Wright-Phillips (Kenwyne Jones 66). Subs not used: Kevin Miller, Gareth Bale.
Previous 20 Seasons | |||||
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
2005/06 | C | a | 1-1 | 21,592 | Akinbiyi |
. | . | h | 1-1 | 10,636 | Gray |
2006/07 | C | h | 2-3 | 13,051 | Jones Gray |
. | . | a | 0-0 | 20,486 | . |
