Saints head to Burnley tomorrow looking to atone for Monday night’s defeat at Crystal Palace.

In the three meetings at Turf Moor since our relegation, we’ve won twice and drawn once, but that good record will be put to a stern test tomorrow afternoon as Burnley are currently flying high in the Championship table. With ten wins from their 22 games, they currently sit in 4th place, six points behind Reading and just ahead of Sheffield United, who they beat 3-2 last week.

Typically, Burnley have made a good start to the season in the Championship only to fall away around this time of the year, and our 3-2 win last season was the beginning of their familiar slide down the table. They ended in 13th place, which was fairly comfortable, but finished only ten points ahead of relegated Leicester City, which goes to show how close the bottom half of the Championship was last season.

They have reserved their best form for in front of their own fans this season, unlike us, and have only lost once on home soil, which was their first home game of the season - a 3-0 defeat against Ipswich. Since then, they’ve won 6 and drawn 4, scoring 17 goals in the process.

If we’re to get anything from the game, we’re going to have to make sure we defend properly from set-pieces, something we failed to do on Monday night for Craig Beattie’s goal which was probably the strike that knocked the stuffing out of us.

Burnley are sweating on the fitness of Michael Duff and Chris McCann, but otherwise manager Owen Coyle has a full squad to choose from. Their goals have mostly been shared between Martin Paterson (signed from Scunthorpe in the summer), Robbie Blake and former Manchester United winger Chris Eagles. They are the key players to look out for tomorrow.

For Saints, Morgan Schneiderlin is expected to come back into the side, possibly in place of Alex Pearce with Jack Cork moving into the centre of defence alongside Chris Perry. The whereabouts of Jason Euell seems to be a bit of a mystery after he was expected to come straight back into the fold after serving his three-match ban, and Anthony Pulis may be on the bench for the first time after recovering from a broken foot.