SO what price on Paul Sturrock finding a settled line-up before the end of the season?

If he can, it will probably mean Saints have had a decent finish to the current campaign.

Successful sides in football tend to be settled ones.

Indeed, for much of last season, the vast majority of the 32,000 sell-out crowd at St Mary's could have predicted Gordon Strachan's preferred line-up with their eyes closed.

Antti Niemi in goal, Wayne Bridge, Michael Svensson, Claus Lundekvam and Paul Telfer at the back, Chris Marsden, Rory Delap, Matthew Oakley and Fabrice Fernandes across the midfield and James Beattie and Brett Ormerod up front.

The likes of Anders Svensson, Jason Dodd, David Prutton and Jo Tessem made for seamless replacements.

People knew their job, people knew the system and most of the time it worked.

This season, though, it's been very different and a quick check through the starting line-ups makes for somewhat dizzy reading.

Top goalkeeper is simple enough: Niemi.

The defence isn't too confusing either. When all are fit, it pretty much picks itself with Graeme Le Saux and Dodd outside what has been arguably Saints' greatest strength - the partnership between Michael Svensson and Lundekvam.

Danny Higginbotham has deputised well at different times for Le Saux, Lundekvam and Michael Svensson, while Fitz Hall has also looked a player of real potential.

In the longer term, the likes of Stephen Crainey and Darren Kenton could eventually step into the footsteps of Le Saux and Dodd.

The forward line has been reasonably settled as well. Beattie and Kevin Phillips is the usual partnership, although Ormerod has also done well at different times this season.

Marian Pahars is the other option and it will be interesting to see whether Sturrock breaks away from the Beattie/Phillips axis.

The indications are that he will stick with it, perhaps believing the goalscoring problem is a product of the midfield.

And it is this area of the team, of course, when things suddenly become more confusing.

To put it in perspective, 12 midfield players have been used at different times in all sorts of combinations in first-team games this season.

Injuries and suspensions have played a part yet, from 35 matches in all competitions, the same quartet of players has started the next match on just six occasions.

That's a lot of shuffling of the midfield pack.

Srachan twice came close to finding what looked to be a winning hand.

The four who finished the 1-0 win against Manchester United at the end of August - Marsden, Oakley, Telfer and Fernandes - featured in the next two wins against Tottenham and Wolves as Saints made their best start to a season for two decades.

Injury to Oakley ruined that little run and it then took until Dece-mber before Strachan found another combination which seemed to be flourishing.

This time it was Pahars, David Prutton, Delap and Telfer as consecutive wins against Charlton and Liverpool were halted by a narrow defeat in the Carling Cup to Bolton.

Since then, continuity among the midfield has been about as rare as goals.

There are certainly plenty of options in the centre with Prutton and Oakley a mouth-watering possibility next season.

The major weakness, though, seems to be a loss of genuine width.

The sale of a defender - Wayne Bridge - forms a large part of the explanation.

His partnership with Marsden was outstanding and formed a major attacking weapon.

Le Saux has certainly brought quality, but he has been injured for parts of the season and obviously does not offer the same fizzing pace.

Little could probably have been done to stop Bridge's sale to Chelsea, but the wisdom of effectively discarding Marsden by not offering him a contract beyond the end of the season was questionable.

Yes, he was less effective without Bridge, but he was still the most consistent player Saints have had on the left this season.

The creativity from the right flank has also suffered through playing Telfer and Dodd together far too much in recent months.

I would still play Fernandes, but if Sturrock doesn't feel he is the man for the right of midfield, then he clearly needs to find a new player.

Perhaps he could do worse than try the energy and pace of Ormerod in that role?

Whatever, ending the game of midfield musical chairs represents THE major challenge for the new Saints manager.

As Strachan said last year, ultimately it's up to the players to make it impossible for the manager to leave them out of the team.

If they don't - or they can't - Sturrock might just want to find out how far chairman Rupert Lowe is prepared to stretch his famously iron budget.