CB Fry

....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.

I wonder, next time we lose a game we should have won easily, how classy your reaction will be? How classy will you be next time we don't get a stonewall penalty awarded to us? Leeds, at very least deserved a point. Warnock on the Football League show was fair enough from what I could see, especially about Kelvin. The only classlessness on this forum is from the gimps who had already decided Warnock is bitter/classless/bad loser etc and decided to whinge about that before Warnock had even said a word.

Don't really know why but I think it won't be Harry. He'll blame his health or something, and we'll end up with the "dream team" of Pearce and Hodgson, hyped up with a load of old ******** about Pearce being groomed to take over in four years time, effectively giving us two shi te England managers for the price of one, and locking down a good six years of soul destroying mediocrity. And to be fair I quite like Hodgson but he will get a rough old ride and he won't get us anywhere other than stuttering into the second round and then back on the plane. And one last point - I don't think anyone can do any better than that anyway, except possibly Mourinho.

It's worth pointing out that Saints vs that lot has been called El Classicoast for a grand total of one occasion, this season. That name is as much made up media b* ll ocks as the idea that Portsmouth is some hotbed of mad-passionate ultra loyal megafans.

I hear he's pretty handy with a chisel and a lump of marble too.

Just confirmed on OS. It's Avram Grant.

Pretty much no chance in any of our lifetimes, unless Liverpool go into administration. Roy Hodgson got slaughtered by scousers for being "small-time" and he'd managed Inter frigging Milan.

Let's hope all four of them lose.

I can't believe Sam didn't take the opportunity to thank Saints for our work developing Kevin Davies who then served him so well at Bolton. Bang out of order IMHO.

We will walk this league.

Second. We've got enough in us to go up automatically, but I think West Ham, player for player, are just too strong for anyone to stop them winning it. We normally get promoted in second place anyway don't we?

Benji's got it covered.... Agree with this completely. 85 and I think we're home and dry for second. And that post really shows the value of points in the bag. We've had our amazing run already this season, and now we "only" need to maintain good form to hold off the competition. The competition need to start pulling together amazing runs and hope that we collapse.

Or, alternatively, wave real money at them, which everyone in the stadium wouldn't have to make a special effort to bring along. And going on about toast is falling victim to the belief that running gags on web forums mean anything in the real world.

There's an awful lot of information in that interview. Not sure if that guy is just a trusted journo with great contacts, or Sullivan just likes blabbing. We're lucky to get Cortese to admit that we paid an undisclosed fee.

If all else fails wheel out the "this forum is going to the dogs" routine. Thanks for bowing to my superior judgement because in this case it clearly is. When fighting for league positions there is no such thing as "unneccessary" points. If Saints get to 81 with three games to go I for one would want them to keep trying to get points and not just give up because we may have got "enough" on your system. Team in first 95points. Team in second 92points (or 84, or 86, or 90). Team in third 80 points. Extrapolating that out to say 81 is "enough to finish second" is not logic, and clearly I am not the one who is "just thick". It's only been enough to finish second once in the last decade. Not logic. Facts.

You have looked at previous trends, but you have looked at previous trends for teams finishing third. Which would be relevant if we wanted to finish third. But we don't. We want to finish second*. Have a look at teams that typically finish second place, see what they get, and then aim for that. Aiming to get a slightly better goal difference than a team that typically finish third will see you more than likely finish third. That 81 points would be enough to finish second is not an "opinion", it's you attempting to make a statement of fact and it is embarrassingly wrong. If it is your "best guess" then it is woeful. 81 points would not be enough to finish second last season because Norwich got 84 points. 84 points is more points than 81 points. This is not an opinion. The year before 81 would have not been enough because WBA got 91 points. 91 points is more points than 81 points. This is not an opinion. The year before 81 would not have been enough because the team in second got 84 points. 84 points is more points than 81 points. This is not an opinion. There was one season that it was 80 but that is an exception not the rule, and in your dopey world you'd be saying 76 would have been "enough". The year before that 86, before that 90 and before that 87, 86 and then 92. All of those points are all more points than 81 points. This is not an opinion. How precisely, in the face of this clear statistical evidence, and with all your breathtaking knowledge of numbers, is 81 points "enough" in those seasons. The aim is to get more points than the points the other teams get. "Enough" in this situation, would usually mean more. More points I mean. Thanks for proving my original impression. Jolly well done on your intelligence and vast experience around the subject of numbers.

Let's not forget Gordon Watson. 8 goals in 52. Blimey. I can remember all that stuff in the Echo at the time about these two being our deadly strike partnership.

We were three games in. Or was it two games in. We would have got promoted under Pardew that season no problem at all.

This is such an idiotic way of looking at things, and it drives me mad every time someone does it. To finish second in any given season you have to do better than the team below you, this is true. But to then extrapolate that and say we only need to aim to acheive fractionally better than the historical third placed team to finish second is simple nonsense. In 2009/10 for example, 80 points would have us finish above Forest in third. Fine. But WBA, who finished second, got ninety one points. Last year, 80 points and great GD would see us above Swansea in third, but Norwich got eighty four points. 2009, it was eighty-four for second. 2008 in a very low points season it was actually eighty. Well done. In 2007 it was eighty-six. In 2006 it was ninety. In 2005 it was eighty-seven. In 2004 it was eighty-six and in 2003 it was ninety-two. That's the kind of points totals the teams in second get. If we don't get that points total, someone else will. The rest of the league won't stop because we've passed the average points total for third. Please, please, please can people stop posting this moronic nonsense ignoring all historical second place teams and pitching everything against historical third place teams. Don't say in the last ten years "eighty points has been good enough to secure second spot", because apart from one season it hasn't. It blatantly, patently, clearly, hasn't been enough points. In a marathon, if you overtake the man in third, you finish....third.

Does seem odd on the surface, but clearly their chairman is sick of being in the play offs and being nearly men. Udders have had enough resources, and in the "we must give these managers time, Alan" world, Clarke's had plenty of time to build an automatic promotion winning team, which you have to conclude was his brief. Therefore [the chairman thinks] they should be first or second, not third or fourth. Maybe he's got Warnock, or McCarthy or Dave Jones or Grayson lined up and maybe they can drag them over the line into the top two. Or maybe not. But I can see the chairman's logic. Either that, or there is something going on with Leeds, or just general working relationship breakdown.

Yes they would. Local decent-sized club going into administration is lead-story news. Big club plays big match again is not news.

Jeez. What is happening to our education system. That survey was diabolical. Dreadful wording and questions that really are going to glean jack in terms of useful insight. I mean, what the fu ck.... If a game is being broadcast and should be good or involving top teams, would this stop you attending your team’s game? I know it's only a uni project but come on. I am starting to think this is actually just spam and we've all been done for our IP addresses or something. Obviously I put a fake name. Ian Brennan.

Quality. Made me laugh, anyway.