It’s often mentioned on the forum that, as soon as one of our games gets selected by Sky for live coverage, we can immediately write that game off as a defeat. So does Sky Sports have some sort of extra-terrestrial control over us when Saints appear live on their channels? SaintsWeb Stats Corner investigates…

A quick glance at this season’s results, which has seen two games out of the 9 played so far televised, would suggest we definitely fare far worse when under the gaze of random pub-goers and national football obsessives who have nothing better to do on a Saturday lunchtime, teatime or any other time Rupert Murdoch and friends decide they’re going to broadcast a game. Both of the televised games so far have brought defeats, 1-0 at home to Blackpool and 4-1 away at QPR.

However, a look back in recent history suggests it might not be all that clear-cut.

Going back to the 2003/4 season, when Saints were in Europe and sat in a Champions League place on Christmas Day (how times have changed, sob), we were shown live on 8 occasions in the league. We had a fairly even record there, winning 3 (including against both Manchester United and Liverpool), losing 3 and drawing 2. Compared with our overall league record that season, the win ratio of 38% in televised games is actually better than the 32% (12 from 38) over the course of the season.

One thing that seems to paint a picture of Sky lording it over us when things are going badly is the fact that in our relegation season, we were televised 12 times, so nearly a third of our league games were shown on Sky! We won only 6 times that season, a win ratio of 16%. Sky witnessed two of those six wins, providing a near-identical ratio of 17%. The defeat ratio that season is the starkest statistic, though, which goes against the conspiracy theorists. Overall, we lost 18 games (a quite shocking 47%), but Sky only showed 4 of those (33%). With stats like those, perhaps they should have shown a few more of those games, then we might have stayed up…

It’s from this point that, much like the football club itself, things start to go downhill rather rapidly. In our first season in the Championship, 7 of our 46 league games were televised. Only one of those games (against Luton Town) was won. Admittedly, only two were defeats, and the draw ratio on Sky of 57% paints a stark picture of what the key failing that season was: converting dominance in games against stubborn opposition into victories.

As much as Sky could have helped us in 04/05, they did as much as possible to keep us out of the promotion mix in 06/07. While Saints ultimately ended the season scraping into the play-offs, and probably deserved the place at Wembley that went to Derby, 4 of the season’s 14 defeats (including the play-offs) were witnessed by the nation, with only one win (from 22 in total) to show for it - the second leg at Pride Park.

Once it was clear we weren’t going to be anywhere near the play-offs again last season (around the beginning of November), Sky completely lost interest in us. We’d had three early-season games shown, two of which we won, but then a blackout until the West Brom away game in the last week of the season. Some (me included) would argue that it’s probably just as well given some of the performances during that period, although those of a car-crash viewing nature (let’s face it, everyone wants to know what’s going on at Newcastle and Tottenham at the moment!) may disagree. That point at the Hawthorns may have, psychologically at least, proved crucial. While on another night Kevin Phillips might have scored 5, we showed that we could take a hit and just get back up again. That came in handy when Stephen Quinn gave Sheffield United the advantage in the final day escape.

This season appears to be one of intrigue as far as Sky’s match selectors are concerned. They’ve heard rumour about a “revolutionary new coaching system” (copyright Saints OS!) and must be wondering what all the fuss is about. They’ll have got a reasonable idea from the first half against Blackpool, but it fell to pieces after that somewhat. It’s difficult for anyone to take a proper opinion on us as a team from the QPR game as we played for an hour with ten men, although most of the national press seemed to think the 4-1 scoreline flattered Rangers.

Looking at the overall picture from the last 5-and-a-bit seasons, we have played a total of 225 league games - with a win ratio of 31% - of which 39 have been shown on Sky. Of the televised games, we only have a win ratio of 23%, which is quite a bit lower than the overall figure. This is compensated for by the draw and defeat ratios, with 41% of Sky-televised games ending in defeat.

If the balance is to be restored so all things are (nearly) equal, we should get a win at the Ricoh Arena on Saturday. However, knowing Saints, it’s never as simple as that…

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