SaintBobby

Dream on. Saints will go up with ease.

Some real pant-wetting on here. We don't need to win the last 3 to get promoted. 2 wins will almost certainly get us up, and quite possibly less than that.

The next games are on Tuesday. By 5pm on 21st there will only be one game left.

I reckon the last 3 games are all much of a muchness. We're prob slight favourites for the two away games. Have to hope Coventry are either down or safe on the 28th. Wouldn't say Posh is strictly a must win, but heck the nerves will really set in if we blow it.

A bit hard done by overall. Wouldn't say robbed - but agree with the view of most neutrals/commentators that the better team lost. But fair play to Reading. They lethally punished three sloppy errors. On another day against another team, we may have just got away with it. Other worries are a lack of pace and urgency. De Ridder was too deep for me, he should have hung on Harte's shoulder and we should have played a couple of balls over the top for him to get onto. He always had to get through their left side rather than beat them for pace in a chase for the ball. In terms of urgency, I don't think we picked up the tempo enough when we got the equaliser or even at 2-1 down. From virtually every throw in, the only option seemed to be short to Hammond or Cork. Final complaint was no one seemed willing to put their laces through the ball. Too often Saints players wanted another touch or another pass rather than take a whack at goal. The 12 shots on target include a fair few limp efforts. All that said, we could quite easily have won the game and should have enough to pick up the necessary points from the last three games. Six points will do it - and any slips from West Ham might would mean we can make it on just 4 points or possibly even three. A little hard to see us taking top spot though. I suppose if we win all 3 remaining matches, it's just about doable. We're not down to the wire yet, we have a modicum of breathing space.

Blimey. Top article. Exciting times. Need to pinch myself.

You can get 10/1 on betfair that we won't finish in the top two. An alternative way to bet would be on our final points - Sporting Index have a spread of 88.75 and 89.5 points. If you reckon we are not going to be in the top two, then we're going to get less than 88.75 points! So "sell" Saints on Sporting Index.

That limit on 65% of turnover being spent on players' wages in League One looks like an absolute killer for Portsmouth. Is the implication (if they survive) that they will just have to pay off lots of contracts before the season begins (e.g. offer Kanu 10 months of his remaining 12 months to sod off straight away?)

I wonder if anyone has taken a team so far in less than two seasons as Adkins? Gaining 40+ places in under two seasons is amazing.

Fox - who has generally been doing well - hasn't shown great delivery in last couple of games. Completely agree that limiting Harte's set pieces in vital.

The supposed breach of an embargo on the Staplewood development story. The club imposed an embargo, but the Echo then found enough info already in the public domain to run the story anyway. Most journalists would say that's fair enough. You might consider it sharp practice, but it warrants a rebuke on the phone and a lengthy period before other stories are given to him ahead of time and a warning this isn't helping the club-Echo relationship. Not an indefinite ban, which I believe was the punishment meted out.

I know there's no way of going back, but it does show the dangers of important games towards the end of the season not being played simultaneously. Just suppose it was West Ham playing on Friday and us v Reading on Saturday. Any slip by West Ham could well encourage both teams to play out a bore draw.

Much more concerned about the results on the pitch than some spat with a journalist. But...the club do seem to arrange their PR in an unorthodox and rather odd fashion (the ban on photographers leading papers to show the highlights in a cartoon strip, the ban on the Echo for what seems a minor breach of protocol etc) It's not the most important thing in the world, but it does look a bit silly, weird and childish at times.

I appreciate you suffer from mental health problems (depression, I think you said). You perhaps also suffer from innumeracy or just a fear of numbers? (unable to cope with 2 or 3 numbers in a paragraph). Certainly, last year, you made a range of assertions which literally don't add up. I don't have a love of all things mathematical - although love a bet and thus requires a basic grasp of probabilities. You also wrong though that highly numerate people have the characteristics you suggest. Where has it been established? I'd say my knowledge of football is somewhere above good-ish but a bit below excellent. Certainly in terms of predicting what is likely to happen, which is a reasonably fair test of what you know about the game, I do pretty well and certainly make your record look truly dire (well, a chimp randomly typing numbers on a typewriter would have a fair chance of making your record look dire in fairness, so that's not my proudest ever boast!)

Well, given you probably know as little about human pyschology as you know about football, I think I can safely stay unperturbed by that remark

I'm in the "want to win the league, not just get promoted" camp. But, a draw would keep us in pole position. Given our GD, we'd only need to match Reading over the last three games and I think we would. So, even though I think we are slight favourites to win, I'd take a draw now.

I think his point was that if you lost tonmight, you'd be 9 points adrift with 12 left to pay for. I agree relegation is now a near certainty for Portsmouth, but suspect that is the least of your problems. You're probably 90% to be relegated, but also about 70% to cease to exist by the start of next season.

The late equaliser was annoying. Very annoying. But it looks like being purely ceremonial. They are near certs for relegation (and probably won't survive into next season IMHO) and we'll very probably go up. I almost don't begrudge them it now. A bit like a dying man's last wish...

Win = we're almost certainly up, and almost certainly as champions Draw = we're almost certainly up, probably as champions, but a bit 60-40ish on that issue Lose = we're still probably going up (70%+ chance) but most likely as runners-up (maybe a 30% chance of being champions) HTH

In my view, the GD is now nailed on. I just can't see how we end up equal on points with West Ham, but behind on goal difference. (if we lose all our remaining games and West Ham win all their games, they might catch our GD - but at that point, our problem is points not goal difference!) As an extra buffer, we have many more goals scored. So even if we ended up on the same points and the same GD as West Ham (a 10,000,000/1 shot), we'd still almost certainly beat them on goals scored. So, the chance that we will end up on the same points as West Ham, but end up one place behind them is something like 10,000,000,000/1. These odds are so small as to be disregarded. It is measurably more likely that some ghastly incident or terrorist attack on St. Mary's will derail us than to even consider this mathematical near-impossibility. Back in the real world: 1. 6 more points (88 in total) guarantees promotion. For each point West Ham drop in their next four games, this falls by a point. 2. To win the division, we need to "keep pace" with Reading. With the slight advantage that we have 3 points and they have a game in hand. (and also that they have to play us at home) Most likely, Saints are nearly nailed on to get an auto-slot, with Friday's game being nearly a title-decider. (but a draw measurably favouring Saints' chances and a Southampton loss being more recoverable by Saints than a Royals loss would be recoverable by Reading). Even if we lost all of our remaining games, I'd put our chances of promotion at nearly 50%.

Amazing how thoughts and moods can change. I couldn't bear to get involved in the post-skate analysis, that last gasp equaliser was just too horrid. But for all the doubters, the bookies odds are now as follows: Saints are a general 1/20 to be promoted (by any means - including play-offs) and a general 4/7 to win the Championship. So, if you think we ain't going to go up (or just wish to hedge), you can make 20 times your stake within a month. A £100 bet makes you £2,000 if we don't go up. If you think Reading are likely to win the title, you can get them at a general 6/4. A £100 bet makes you a £150 profit.

Did you watch either game? If not, on what are you basing your opinion? I'd say we were 4/10 v Blackpool and 5.5/10 v Portsmouth. (i.e. a slightly poor average) But, heck, what do I know?

Did you watch the game? West Ham should have had at least one and possibly two other penalties. Why do you imply any worry about "dodgy decisions"? It was an absolute stonewall penalty. I appreciate that you are unable to actually watch much football given you're away from the UK. But I'm unclear why you seem to be so determined to prove that ignorance is no barrier to expressing an opinion.

Those sentences don't really go together. If you think West Ham and Reading are about to drop points, we'd still be in very good shape with two draws. And pretty good shape with just one draw.

If you really think Saints will lose or draw, you would be doing your favoured charity a bigger favour by betting that way and giving them the winnings. Saints are about 1/2 to win - so you can approximately treble your stake if they fail to win.