PokingFun

Who says we could even have got Howard or Jones for the right money onto the bus? Do you know exactly who we wanted to sign, how much, financial demands etc?

6 goals is surely still a decent return for a midfielder playing in a mid-table side. Also, didn't he get injured for a while as well? Its not just about scoring goals either so give the lad a chance and wait and see I reckon.

Teams with momentum usually win play-offs, ours would be negative as we will have thrown away 2nd place potentially, go for 2nd all day long in my opinion but do it without risking AL or AOC if their fitness means they can make little or no impact compared to what else we have available to play.

OK, same scenario as Kingsland presented, but you were say a P'boro or H'field fan, would you feel confident in gaining auto promotion or would you say Saints are favourites to pip you?

It hasn't happened any more to us than any of the others in the top six, possibly with the exception of Brighton and even they had a min-blip of 5-6 games without a win mid-season. We've won 4 of the last 5 for goodness sake.

Precisely! Good post.

Well they can, look at Bournmouth and Charlton. Just a couple of examples.

NA will not risk AL / AOC if they're not fit enough to have an impact and he will still aim to go up automatically if they're out so I'm guessing he will combine the best of those options according to their injury status. Also, I fully expect us to gain enough points to go up automatically even if we lose one or both of them for a couple of games.

Not god, just sick of hearing how bad we are after every game we draw / lose even though the team is doing well. We all get upset at individual results, its natural, but do you really think the comments on some of these posts people write about immediately after the games are justified?

Yeah because NA can influence injuries to players in matches and should have headed the chip into the box clear ..... drama queen and sad if you cannot sleep as a result of this ffs!

I agree 85 should be enough, 87-88 would almost certainly do it barring P'boro winning 9 out of 9.

Err, we didn't lose .....

Yeah, but don't go talking too much sense like that on here, it'll upset the knee jerk brigade who cannot see past the previous match!!

4 wins and a draw in five games is not momentum? I give up with some of our fans, I really do. ****ing knee jerkers!! And yes, I do have a bee in my bonnet about the number of people who are making stupid statements about players not handling pressure etc. FFS, we lost arguably 2 of our best three players tonight in an away game and still came within a whisker of winning. Prior to that we won our previous four games that were critical to our chances. If they couldnt handle the pressure we would not even have got where we are.

Thats because its NONsense.

Another one, jesus we have won 4 of last 5 with three of them tough away games, what on earth do you want?

Get it into that very very thick head of yours ...... no one wanted Saints to lose or draw tonight but the more realistic people on here that understand a little bit about football get the fact that you simply cannot win every game. We have won 4 out of the last 5 games of which three have been tough away games. Charlton is not an easy place to go and win, nor is colchester or bournemouth but the lads have taken 7 points from those games. A very very good return. We are now level on points with P'boro, above them massively on GD, have a game in hand, are 2 points behind H'Field with 2 games in hand, massively ahead of them on goal difference as well. In addition, we have only conceded 4 goals in about the last 9 games, a number of which have been away games. We have been scoring regularly and from different areas of the pitch, Jaidi, Fonte, Hammond, Barnard, Lambert, Lallana, Oxo, Chaplow should I go on?! The job has just become a bit harder, not much harder you over reactive muppet. The fact two players got injured is outisde of our control. The only negative tonight that we could control was conceding late on but having been in front 18 times this season and never lost having been in front, I would suggest that is a very good record. Now why don't you quit moaning and focus on the positives we have going for us for a change. Our name is stamped all over automatic promotion because other teams have to play each other yet as well so will almost certainly slip up. Keep up the form of our last 8-9 games, in fact keep up the CONSISTENT form that NA has delivered this season and we will get promoted for sure.

What are you on about? 18 times we have led this year and won 14 of those games which seems alright to me.

That was my point, if we carry on as are then teams will have to be virtually 100% to overhaul us. We can afford a slip-up, the others cannot.

Walsall was not a shoe-in game, there is no such thing as you're effectively saying we should win 100% away against any team in their position. This is clearly nonsense as football never has worked like that. The beauty of football is that underdogs can and do win against higher opposition (for a number of different reasons). Are you now saying that Charlton is a shoe-in? They beat Peterborough only a few weeks back at home but have had a poor run since. The Peterborough win shows they are capable on their day. I think Saints have set their stall out to win every game. We are set up very solid and tough to score against knowing that we have superior players where that quality will come through. I'd also venture a suggestion that we are fitter than most teams as we are ending games very well at the moment. If we fail to win or draw tonight then motivation will not be an issue. After all, we failed to beat Walsall and then won four on the bounce, including against one of our promotion rivals and another at one of the toughest places to play in Colchester. Also, failing to win or draw tonight will not be down to the team not being up for it or appreciating it, from what I see they are bang up for it in every game and there is nothing to suggest that will change. They have already had to dig deep to keep pace and have the opportunity to get on top now but its not the end if that doesn't happen tonight and it wont be due to a lack of desire.

Alpine, whether you agree with it or not, anything in this world where the final standings (or level of success or failure) are calculated by use of a number (in this case final points totals for all teams) will mean that it is totally relevant for people to form an opinion based on past statistics and what it might mean for future success. This means that some fans will want to take an objective view based on what points total they think we will finish on along with our competitors when deciding what it is we need to do to gain enough points for promotion. Its not an idiotic concept, just a different one to the game by game approach you seem to like. I agree with you that a win tonight will be a very good thing for us and will continie to keep up the momentum but if we were not to win this game, but continue a similar level of form for our remaining games that we have achieved in the last 11 games then we should achieve 23-24 points which puts us on 87-88 points. Achieving this level means that all of our competitors would need to achieve 2.5pts per game as a minimum to reach us. Given that some of them will play each other still along the way then thats a monumental ask should we continue achieving what we have achieved since NA came into the club. In summary, the maths tells me we only need to keep achieving what we have done since NA arrived and we will get promoted in automatic position (likely 2nd place). My feeling is that 20 points between now and the end of the season may even be enough given other teams will play each other. I use numbers to form an objective opinion and it is clear that whilst I would love us to beat Charlton tonight and very much think we can, it will certainly not be the end of the world if we do not as the other teams will also have their slip ups still along the way and lets be honest, we are showing no signs at all of bottling this run-in so far.

I think we really need to win but I won't be there because I am not an uber fan. COYR!! :-)

Get in there you dirty ****in dons!!

Or that they are a growing business that has now started to deliver profit after the usual start up costs etc have been eroded from their business planning ....

It's Ageas, I used to work for them and I can assure you they would never be in the market for sponsorship of Southampton FC as they do their marketing for insurance virtually always through intermediaries so no need to sell the brand there.