CB Fry

Correct and correct. Which makes even more laughable the witterings of some people on here who have turned Markus Leibherr into the footballing equivalent of Del-Boy's mum. "He said to me on his death bed. He sajd, Del-Boy, make sure you invest in that training ground. And Del-Boy, it's now a ten year plan and never ever sell the club. Or something."

Good for you. So we're in the hands of the Leibherrs forever now on the back of the old man going to the cup final? Maybe his death bed agreement (if you really want to talk of such things) involved "seeing us right" and into the Premier League and then let some other ever-so-lucky soul have the pleasure of "falling in love with us". Or something. I love how Saints to the Leibherrs is, according to you, completely inconsequential and, at the same time really important. So that's all right then.

Laughable thread. Come on people. These people don't love us. They just happen to own us. And one day they will sell us. That's the five year plan in my opinion. Funnily enough Nicola doesn't say this to Radio Solent. No sh it he doesn't.

What evidence have I got? What evidence? Funny, I thought I was giving an opionion on a football internet forum. Let's remember who it was who dismissed all talk of a rift between the club and Pardew as "unproven speculation" because there wasn`t a video interview about it on the OS. So my advice is stick to the computer games you f u c king weirdo.

I would estimate we don't have anywhere near that. It wouldn't surprise me if the family decided to sell the club in the summer, or failing that the summer after if we stay up. I think the Leibherrs have invested the money but entirely on the assumption that they would get the money back and this could happen sooner rather than later. There was lots of talk of a five year plan, and I've always seen this as a finite period - ie the club being sold at the end of that five year period. In business terms its kind of a venture capitalist/turnaround strategy. Buy a business cheap, turn it around and sell on for a profit. I have never had any doubt that this is Cortese's aim, and was how he sold the idea to Markus - let's see if we can get this club from L1 to the Prem, because if we do we can get our money back. I have never really bought into the romance bit. I'd say we are just ahead of schedule so we may well be sold sooner. Saints in admin in league one was a very rare opportunity to genuinely make money out of football - if they got it right and got into the Premier League within 3/4 seasons then they could get a decent return if they could sell the club on. So far, it is working like a dream for them.

Hang on. Is complaining about decisions "graceless" or not then?

Jesus Christ. More ridiculous preciousness over an opposing manager's post match comments. Everything Saunders said sounds fair enough to me. What do you expect people to say? "Well done to the super dooper saints. They are my favourite team ever"

You can overthink that kind of thing any which way. Teams who know they have got nothing but pride left quite often play with freedom and no fear, rather than a team under pressure to make the play offs. Extrapolating tonight's Burnley result into what that means for them when then subsequently face Reading (or WHU, no idea who is playing who) is peeling the onion to almost deranged levels. Hang in there people - we're going up anyway and Ipswich or Coventry's results tonight really won't have any impact on us.

Really don't think any of those clubs are any threat to us whatsoever in what we are trying to achieve. The top two spots are between three clubs, all others are just play off hopefuls. It's possible we may end up in the play offs but there is little point worrying who we would face.

Stop worrying people. We're going up. Let's start getting used to it. This isn't counting chickens, or gloating, or tempting fate. For us to secure going up we need about ten points to hit 85 which is a decent guess of the requirement for second. Ten points in eight games. So not much more than a point a game. Three wins and a draw. 1.25 points a game - basically relegation form. To get promoted. So even if the wheels do come off, we'll probably go up automatically anyway. Good, eh? It makes me laugh there are people who will still say "it's typical saints, we'll mess it up". Really? People still associate "typical Saints" with failure despite us now in our third consecutive season of winning pretty much every game we play. "Typical Saints" means winning. "Typical Saints" means clean sheet, after clean sheet, after clean sheet. "Typical Saints" means goals, goals, goals. "Typical Saints" means we are Southampton, we're top of the league. "Typical Saints" means going to Wembley and lifting a trophy "Typical Saints" relentlessly hounding 300-match unbeaten Huddersfield out of the promotion race. "Typical Saints" means top of the Championship first season back pretty much from day one to March. "Typical Saints" means player of the season and the stand out managerial performance of the year. "Typical Saints" means no megastars apart from our homemade ones, no greedy b astar ds on fat salaries, and brilliant team spirit. "Typical Saints" means we're going to do this thing. Start believing everyone.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Good job I'm not a betting man.

Darren Ferguson can have my kids.

Saints to draw. Reading to draw. West Ham to win.

Thank god for that. Picking up my S2 tomorrow. Would have been gutted if SP didn't work on it. It will save me lugging the laptop into the kitchen for my very regular cooking dinner/Saints match situations.

Warnock's stats are great, actually. For a kick off, Warnock has been promoted into the Premier League twice, against Nigel Adkins zero times. Warnock struggled in the top division, but none of us know how Nige is going to get on. Warnock has just managed longer than Nigel has and at a higher level - big Championship level clubs fighting for promotion, not league one level clubs scrapping at the bottom of the Championship. When Warnock got Cortese style backing at QPR what happened - they ran away with the league, far more decisively than Nigel has achieved thus far. And this is last season we're talking about, not ancient history. Let's have a look at Adkins in a decade's time and see where he is then. People thinking he is never going to fail anywhere ever are just deluding themselves.

I think we will be about 12th in the Premier League, with the club announcing around about now that we have been sold to a South African/Japanese/Russian/American group of investors. If the Leibherrs want to get a return on their investment, then this time next year, when we are in the Premier League and looking safe for another season, is the best time to sell us on. Let's just hope they aren't mental case Indian chicken farmers, or full-of-it Yanks mortgaging the club they don't own to the hilt to generate cash to buy the club.

So basically, it is all thanks to Rupert then. I jest of course. Actually this is a really good point. The minus ten season helped take off some pressure, and also add in a "us against the world" attitutude which no doubt helped forge the squad together.

If we're in the Prem next season then this seems highly unlikely, unless we are playing them in some "tournament" in Thailand or something. Clubs don't really ever play teams in the same division in pre season on home soil, except for the community shield of course.

Well, not silly at all. 85 points has been enough most seasons in the last decade or so. Reading have won eight in a row and still trail behind us, even if they win their game in hand. And if Reading do end up winning every single game they ever play ever again, which some on here have worked themselves up into a frenzy thinking they will, there is still another place to play for. And 85 or so is probably going to be enough for that.

We do. We drew 1-1 at home yesterday.

As long as we beat Barnsley, no problem. We can't win them all.

Sorry, can't agree. Four points from these two games will be fine. I think you're being a bit melodramatic. Three weeks ago I bet you were fretting about Birmingham who don't even merit a mentionhere. If Reading, come saturday, have gone on to win what would be eight games in a row, then, well, well done them. I think it unlikely. It's funny that you also assume that West Ham and Reading will only come unstuck in "tougher games" but worry about Saints dropping points in games they should win. I think it perfectly possible that WHU and Reading can not win winnable games as much as we can.

....and this is where the pointless agonising comes in. Reading are not going to win every game from now until the end of the season. And neither are we. We can drop points in the next week and it will be fine. My point is if Reading do go on an amazing winning run of winning 10 games in a row or better then no, there will be nothing anyone can do about it because it will be a freak run of mega football which no one will match. Basically what I am saying is, it won't happen.

As opposed to all the other seasons in the history of the championship where all the teams not in the top two places don't bother trying to challenge them. Of course there's a chasing pack. There always is. Reading have won 6 in a row or something - do you really think they are going to win eight in a row, ten in a row? And in all fairness, if Reading do anything like that, they'll be champions and there's nothing any other club could do about it.

We don't even need six points, and it is highly likely we won't get them, just because that's what happens, even when you're top two. Four points this week would be 69 points from 36 games. That's 1.9 points a game, plenty for a top two finish, and would leave us needing about 16 points from ten games to pretty much cast iron guarantee promotion. 16 points from 10 games is basically scraping-into-the-play-offs form. All in all, I am saying we do have some wriggle room to "screw up". Let's not think we have to never drop a point again.