Saints boss Nigel Adkins takes his side to West Ham tomorrow with just a point separating the top two

Southampton geared up for the biggest game of the Championship season tomorrow night by taking full advantage of the postponement of West Ham United’s game at Peterborough at the weekend.

Saints beat a resurgent Burnley 2-0 at St Mary’s on Saturday to cut the Hammers lead at the top to one point ahead of the two teams clashing at Upton Park.

Saints boss Nigel Adkins was keen to highlight the impact of new signing Billy Sharp at the weekend as the January purchase from Doncaster registered his first goal for his new club.

Sharp’s deflected effort followed Adam Lallana’s early strike as the home side nullified the threat of Eddie Howe’s men to record only their second win since Boxing Day.

“Billy Sharp is going to be a massive threat in this league,” said Adkins, who paid £1.8million for the striker’s services.

“You can see the link-up play between Rickie Lambert and Billy, there are goals in both of them. They are going to be a huge threat for any defence.”

The pair take that threat to East London tomorrow where a win would take Southampton back to the top of the table.

One of the teams hoping to gatecrash the top two, Cardiff City, blew their chance of taking advantage of teams around them having fixtures postponed, losing 2-1 at Leicester City.

With Birmingham’s game at Barnsley hit by the weather, the Bluebirds had the chance to move clear in third spot and put the pressure on the top two with a win at the King Power Stadium, but found Nigel Pearson’s side on one of their going days.

Leicester went into the game on a run of five home league games without a win but a double from Paul Gallagher proved enough to see off Cardiff – Peter Whittingham scoring for the visitors.

Middlesbrough’s tumble down the league wasn’t helped by Saturday’s game at Ipswich falling victim to freezing temperatures – 37 minutes after the game had begun.

The game survived two pre-match pitch inspections but referee Dean Whitestone made a decision to call a halt to events following an injury to Ibrahima Sonko, who suffered suspected cracked ribs.

The anger of fans over the decision to start the game and then abandon it was exacerbated when it was revealed that those who bought tickets would only be entitled to a 50 per cent discount for the rescheduled game.

Ipswich Town chief executive Simon Clegg is expected to confirm details of the rearranged game today, and said: “That (50% discount) falls in line with Football League regulations but we will be taking a broader look at the whole matter as we always planned to.

“Obviously we understand the fans’ frustrations but a lot of people worked very hard to ensure the game went ahead. Our groundstaff worked through the night from Wednesday onwards and could not have done any more.

“I’ll be speaking to Middlesbrough and we will issue a statement on the website to confirm all details regarding Saturday’s game and the rearranged fixture.”

ELSEWHERE

Hull City moved back into the play-off places and kept Bristol City on the fringes of the bottom three with a comfortable 3-0 win at the KC Stadium.

Jack Hobbs scored his first league goal in more than three years which was followed by strikes from Robert Koren and Matty Fryatt to make it three wins in the Tigers’ last four games.

The defeat for the Robins saw their cushion over the bottom three cut to five points as Nottingham Forest picked up a point in a 1-1 draw at home to Watford.

The game was Forest’s first since the death of owner Nigel Doughty and they opened the scoring through Gareth McCleary’s 25-yarder, only for Troy Deeney to equalise before half-time.

Brighton kept themselves in the hunt for a play-off place with a 2-1 win at Leeds United in a game that exploded into life in the last 15 minutes. Craig Mackail-Smith put the visitors ahead only for Luciano Becchio to level two minutes later before Alan Navarro gave Brighton all three points with a stoppage time winner.

Reading are also just below the play-off places as Jimmy Kebe and Jason Roberts gave them a comfortable 2-0 win over Coventry who remain rock-bottom of the table, eight points from safety.

Finally Blackpool and Derby’s play-off hopes were dented as they were held by Portsmouth and Millwall respectively, while Crystal Palace’s game against Doncaster Rovers was postponed due to a frozen pitch.