Cabrone

At the moment Lee is preferred but Billy Sharp's time will come. Sooner or later there will be an injury\loss of form or just general tiredness amongst our front 2 and then Sharp gets his turn. It's just part of being a squad player. It's a great position for us to be in.

Well done Ricky, absolutely brilliant player and hugely deserved. Now go out and finish the job for the Saints!

6 more wins (87 total) should definitely do it. Win all at home + Palace\Millwall (a) and we're there. Just need to keep on doing what we've already been doing all season.

Good result and another 3 points. IMO we're now 6 wins away from almost certain promotion. Win our home games + Millwall\Palace (a) and we're there. Might even be able to do it with another 16 points but it would be tight. Keep your heads Saints and steer this ship home.

Just to note that whilst Brum (a) sounds tough it will very much depend on whether they have made playoffs by then. If they have then they'll put out a 2nd XI and it could be a stroll for Reading. Let's all hope they still need 3 points going into that game.....

That's why this is such a fantastic competitive league, one that I would be sad to leave. That said, we are well capable of getting the 2 wins so that should be the expected target. 71 points with 10 games to go is a powerful position to be in. Reading have Pompey and Leicester at home, Pompey are fighting for their lives and Leicester are going all out for a playoff place so let's hope they play as well at Reading as they did at St Marys. West Ham have Watford and Doncaster at home. I can only see 2 wins TBH although they can be a bit dogy on home turf. Come on Saints, keep your heads and see this through - promotion is soooo close now!

It's not the 4-0 canters that champions are made of, it's the gritty, down and dirty 1-0's at places like Leeds where promotions are gained. We may have rode our luck but by crickey, the determination in defence was incredible. 6 more home games, if we can get 6 wins and pick up wins at Millwall and Palace then we will do it. For the first time I'm starting to smell promotion. Someone buy KD a pint - he was bl**dy awesome.

2 words............Kelvin Davis.

Reading's last 4 away games are at West Ham, Brighton, Saints and Birmingham so I can see them dropping a fair few points in those. They will hit a sticky patch between now and season's end.

Struggling to think of the last time we missed a pen, was that game the last time we missed?

B - we go up on merit or we don't go up (couldn't care less about getting to the plastic league TBH). Don't want Pompey to go bust, enjoy the rivalry, demotion to lge 1 would be sufficient for me.

Has to be Ricky for me with Adam and Jos joint 2nd and Chaplow 4th. Without Ricky we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are. Our standout striker, infact the whole division's standout striker. Bit unlucky for the other guys as in many other seasons any one of them could have won it.

Kelvin is fine but Green is a much better keeper. I'd have him in a shot.

I got closure the day we were taken over but from a club perspective I guess it's when we get back to where we were before L**e screwed it all up, lower-mid table obscurity in the prem. Not that I'm in any way bothered about being back in the prem, I think this league is much better.

I quite like Carroll, he's a pretty effective striker if you play him correctly. Plenty of balls in from the wings and he'll create chaos in the opposition's box. Not his fault Liverpool paid a mad fee for him and don't play to his strengths thus lowering his confidence. He's no Pele but he's decent at what he does. However does make you think how much Ricky would be worth if we were to sell him? Guess his age would go very much against him now in terms of cash value.

Phew, fantastic result at a ground that's been a banana skin in the past. Just as important are the results around us, despite Reading's form still think that W.Ham and Brum are the teams to watch and I'm sooo glad Brum lost today. I'm really hoping they have a dip in form (they are due one). Reading will crash and burn at some stage IMO. Another massive game at Leeds next week (TBH they are all pretty massive from now onwards).

I quite liked him, he definately had some skill but I always thought he over elaborated on things when he could have been a bit more direct and effective. Will always remember his helicopter twirls all over the place which were to be fair to him, pretty effective at getting him some space. I hope the fans give him a warm reception.

If we lose and Brum win then they will have the chance to go above us. When you compare their form and remaining fixtures against ours I'd say it would take a massive effort to overhaul them. West Ham look likely to win too so they could pull ahead by 4 points with 1 game in hand. We really need to win on Saturday, it's crunch time.

Yes, hate to say it about the negative whinge bag but he is effective. The other manager that I have a serious aversion to is Neil Warnock but again, I have to say he is damn effective in getting clubs into the prem. Despite their records I still wouldn't like us to hire either of them though, the daily moaning and whining would be too much.

That's pretty much how I feel. It's a race between us,W.Ham and Brum. W.Ham have points on us and Brum are going like a steam train. I think it will go to the end but my gut feeling is we'll trip up in enough away games to cost us 2nd. Brum as champs, W.Ham 2nd and we'll go into the lottery. Really hope I'm wrong.

Whilst a point away and 3 at home should do it this really is the kind of game that we should be looking at 3 points if we are to get top 2. Merely aiming for a point in away games puts huge pressure on our home form so when we can get 3 we need to go for it. I think we'll need 26 points for an auto place so a win at Watford will reduce the target down to 23 from 13 games with 6 at home. Very doable IMO.

The last 3 games have been away at the best 2 teams (alongside us) in the division + home against a team on an awayday hot streak and we've bagged 5 points. Got to be happy with that though can't help thinking we could have nicked it last night (like Brum). Looking at our respective fixture lists we'll finish above West Ham IMHO, not so sure about Brum though.

What I meant was that apart from those 4 games we have either exactly the same or (theoretically) significantly easier fixtures than them. Therefore if we can get close to their points tally in these 4 matches then (on paper) we should have every chance of overtaking them. But as you say there is a long way to go and injuries\suspensions are going to have a big impact. I just hope we have got all our bad luck out of the way over the last 2 months. I also think we should be good enough for at least a draw at their place.

Agreed, West Ham do look to have a tougher run in than us. They play Palace, Boro, Hull and Watford at home whereas we play them away so if we could get within 2-3 points of their tally in these games then I think we'll overhaul them. Long way to go yet though.

I may be in a minority but I like HR and think he's a top manager. When he came here we were a ship that was already going down, I remember seeing one of his first games incharge at Spurs and we were total gash. I mean total and utter gash. I can remember thinking that if he could manage to keep us up that season he'd have done something pretty heroic. Let's not forget that he had to work under L**e who was coming up with genius ideas like paying a fortune to get a rugby coach and a 'soccer school' manager to take over behind Harry's back. Let's also not forget that he assembled a damn good champ team that was one quality striker short of getting us out of the Coke at the first attempt IMO.......and how much was he given to spend at the start of that season?? £90K for Fuller. We battered teams without beating them because we couldn't score. Ipswich away springs to mind, we murdered them and somehow only got 1 point. Imagine if the clowns in the boardroom had actually backed him with a couple of million from the sale of Crouch and Phillips? I think we really could have gotten back to the prem and then who knows? HR might have been a hero here. I'm not surprised that he thought 'bugger this' and left. Lesser managers than HR would have walked, SFC was a total circus at the time. No hard feelings Harry, I know who the real culprit was.