Bluebirds head South. Match preview

Last updated : 31 March 2006 By Michael Morris
It's a first visit to St Mary's for Cardiff City this weekend with a match the Bluebirds need to win to keep the play off dream alive. With a 5 point gap to close over preston it's not going to be a race that's won easily but there's still hope.

Preston themselves are away this weekend, they face Coventry while Wolves are away at Plymouth. All three teams challenging for that play off spot will do well to get an away win.

For Dave Jones it's a return to the club he managed in the Premiership before he joined Wolves. Like at Wolves I'm sure Jones will get a superb reception from Saint's fans. The enemy within at St Mary's is Chairman Rupert Lowe, he was the one remove Jones and is the man the fans will be protesting about tomorrow. As mentioned in a previous story they've gone as far as to hire a plane to fly an anti Rupert Lowe banner over the stadium.

George Burley is the manager at Southampton and he's struggling to find any sort of form. City beat Saints at Ninian Park on New Years Eve and it would be great to complete a league double. Since then Southampton have only won 2 games. They have not won in the last 5 games. They sit just 7 points above the trap door to League 1. While they should do enough to keep themselves up they will be under pressure to get a result against us.

At the time of writing there is no confirmed team news but City will need to improve on the performance they put in against QPR last weekend. Realistically City need to go on a winning run if they hope to overtake Preston. With it being April 1st let's hope there are no fools on the Cardiff City side and the sell out away section of over 2,500 have a great day.

Southampton v Cardiff City
3:00pm, St Mary's Stadium
Saturday April 1st.