Hammond Wants To Keep Pressure On

Charlton visit St Mary's on Saturday in a massive game for both clubs. Saints' skipper hopes that a good display and a win will help keep the pressure on the teams fighting with them for the final play-off position.

'It'll be a good game I think,' he told Saints Player. 'Two big clubs against each other, they're a decent team theat's in the play-offs and we want to try to catch them, so it's a game that we must win.'

'They're where we want to be, that's the ambition of the club this season. All we can do in the seven games we have left this season is try to win those matches. If we win those seven matches we've done well, but if we don't then at least we've done our bit. There's no point other teams slipping up and us not winning games. All we can do is concentrate on ourselves.'

This is all very admirable but it is probable that the gap is going to prove too big to close. Dean says that all clubs have a blip but it is possible that the two main competitors have already had theirs.

Huddersfield are coming out of one and have just regained the winning touch. Colchester are struggling and have slipped from the lasst play-off spot. They still have some very difficult games coming and could fall further behind even if they can turn their form around.

Dean does issue one warning to this weekends' visitors. He advises that Saints are not the same team that visited the Valley earlier in the season. He warns that we now have a winning mentality and have a far better set of players that have gelled over the season.


All in all the Charlton game could be the defining moment of the run-in for Saints. The mood in the camp is still one of optimism.

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