SaintBobby

This.

Seriously? You based your view of our first half performance on a ten word text message from a friend???? Gees.....

Sorry to dissent. I thought we were pretty good for the first 60 minutes. Not great. Not inspiring. But if you'd shown me the first 60 minutes on video and then said "we've deleted the footage of any goals", I would have reasonably guessed we were a goal or two ahead. I simply can't get my head around some poster(s) saying the first half display was amongst the worst he's ever seen us play. It's not even the worst I've seen us play in the last 14 days. I guess there's always a tendency to hyperbolise amongst fans. I'm prone to it too. I've probably watched about 400 Saints games in person and maybe another 50+ on TV. But I still find myself saying "that was the dullest game ever" or "that was the unluckiest defeat ever" or "that was the most pitiful surrender ever" or "that was the most amazing comeback ever". The truth is that we exaggerate in the moment (this is captured better on SWF than at a live game because there's an audit trail). The game on Saturday was probably in the top 10% of Saints games I've seen for entertainment. But it wasn't even the best comeback I've seen.

A lot depends on our ambitions and the five year plan. I think the present squad is probably good enough to come mid-table in the NPC. Say, about 12th-14th. I think the issues are as follows: 1. Do we lose AOC anyway? If so, we're going to be £5m+ richer, but definitely need some serious investment on the wings. If not, then AOC as RM and Adam as LM seems to me to be a better pair of 1st choice wide players than we are likely to be able to afford/attract. 2. Central defence. We almost certainly need a serious investment in partnering Fonte. 3. Can Lambert cut it in the NPC? I think this is a huge issue, but one that's tough to answer. I'm actually a bit more confident of Barnard in the NPC than Lambert. Am not saying ditch Rickie. Not at all. But if he's not going to be the main man, we may need to at least think about a £1m-£2m striker. What worries me is that I'm not sure there's a middle road here. We either need to have him as the striker we're hoping to get 20+ goals from or get someone else in. Him being okayish and getting 10-12 goals would mean we were slightly hamstrung. 4. Central midfield. This is probably where I'd make the biggest investment. I like Morgan a lot, but wonder whether he will emerge as a superb rather than merely technically impressive player. If he can, we need to find him a partner he can work with. I'm not anti-Hammond or Chaplow, but not inspired by them either. I'd probably give them bothy a 7/10 in League One and maybe a 6/10 in the Championship. To invest in a player who is an 8.5 or 9 in the NPC in central midfield and can act as the engine room would be a huge boost. 5. Is there a goalkeeper issue? I think not. Kelvin as no.1 and easing in Bart as his replacement seems more than fine to me. But I do think this is a debatable area. 6. Are Harding and Butterfield good enough? In my view "yes", but I probably want better cover for Harding (neither Dickson nor a recalled Mills cut the mustard for me). I'm yet to be persuaded by Richardson as cover at RB, but am willing to give him more time.

Don't ignore goal difference. If it does get bloody close, our superior GD cld be crucial. I suppose one way to look at it is what will be the case as we enter our final game at home to Walsall? There are a zillion permutations before then, but in order of likelihood (and ruling out extreme wins for any team such as a 14-0), I'd place the scenarios in order of likelihood as follows: 1. Saints need a draw to guarantee promotion 2. Saints need a win to guarantee promotion 3. Saints have already been promoted irrespective of the result 4. Saints need a win or a draw, but also need results elsewhere to go their way (e.g. a Huddersfield failure to beat Brentford) 5. Saints are mathematically incapable of making 2nd place

I'm not sure this is right. Is it? It's not really a matter of "dropping" points. It's how many points you can raise. If Huddersfield "drop" 5 points, but we lose our three tough away games, then we've "dropped" 9 points, haven't we? The basic maths (which I screwed up above) is that we need to win 5 points more than Huddersfield, with us having 9 games left and them having six. That means the absolute worst case scenario is that they win 18 points and we need 23. If you think they will drop 5 points, that means them getting 13 points from 6 games and we'd need 18 points from our remaining 9 games. Despite their excellent form recently, they have a very tough set of fixtures, I'd probably put them to get ten points (W 3 D 1 L 2) or eleven points (W 3 D 2 L 1) , which would leave us needing 16 points to be promoted. Barring some utterly mad results (e.g. Huddersfield winning their "win" games 6-0 and us only winning ours 1-0), our superior goal difference will hold good and that's worth 1/2 a point. So if we end up equal on points with them, we are almost certainly going to end up above them. I think on balance I want Hudd v Posh to be draw. But if not I want Posh to win. A Hudd win is definitely the worst outcome.

I think the way to look at it now is that it's been us and Huddersfield for 2nd place. (Peterborough could just about do it, but would need both Saints and Huddersfield to trip up badly) The maths are therefore pretty simple. We need to get five more points than Huddersfield. Huddersfield's remaining fixtures are: Peterborough (H) Charlton (A) MK Dons (A) Dag & Red (H) Brighton (A) Brentford (H) work out what you think Huddersfield will get from that lot, add five, and that's what we need basically. If you think Huddersfield are going to perform really badly, then take a look at Posh's games. However many points they get in seven games, we'd need to get one less in nine games. I'd say we most likely need around 16 points for second spot. 21 points from the next 9 games makes promotion a mathematical certainty.

We came back from 0-2 to beat Fulham 4-2 in the Premiership.

No it wasn't. We weren't great for the first 52 minutes and couldn't get a shot away, but I thought we were the better team through out the match. We didn't deserve to be two down at any stage.

We shouldn't have gone two nil down. Two sucker punches really. But great, great character from the team. Seems the wrist slitters were out in force on here, but the crowd at St Marys were great even at 0-2. We are now very heavy favourites for automatic promotion. Great game. Great day. Coyr

The most pivotal game of the season will probably end up being Walsall at St Marys....

I don't think most of the 92 league teams can realistically expect to get more points per game than anyone else. This season, Saints should have. 3rd's not awful, but all things are relative (e.g. I'm guessing c.65th for Blackpool would be considered a triumph)

The normal rules of capitalism don't seem to apply to football clubs. Lots of "on the brink" situations, but very, very few liquidations.

The 1-1 v Newcastle was a fantastic game (the first my sister had been to and she loved it despite not much liking football much). Other shouts for: Saints 3 - 2 Arsenal (brilliant Beattie equaliser, Delgado scores, Campbell sent off and that amazing triple save by Niemi from Viera) Derby 2 - 3 Saints (why, oh why, don't away goals count double? Amazing game, gutting outcome. I remember the heavens opening afterwards in almost biblical fashion...God showing his displeasure....) Saints 3 - 1 Man Utd (everyone remembers the 6-3, but this is the one where they changed their shirts at half time and Benali riled Keane until Keane got a straight red)

This analysis is from my father (a mathematician), for what it's worth....I asked him if the rational thing to do was to bet against Saints being promoted given the current odds (we're 2/7 or 1/4 TO GO UP) "I have now completed a detailed statistical analysis of League 1, and my conclusion is that the odds currently being offered are the right ones. I see a reasonable target for Southampton's last ten games as 20 points. This is what you have managed to achieve this season if the first six matches (4 points from 6 games) are discounted. Looking at the remaining fixtures, six wins, two draws, and two defeats seems entirely achievable. If you make this total you are almost certain to finish second. Only four teams could possibly beat you. If we make the entirely reasonable assumption that you keep your superior goal difference, 1. Bournemouth would need 24 points from 8 games (ie to win them all), or 2. Milton Keynes would need 21 points from 7 games (ie to win them all), or 3. Peterborough would need 20 points from 8 games - this means winning at least 7 games, or winning six and losing none (and they still have away games away against three of the top eight teams - Huddersfield, Leyton Orient and Rochdale - as well as a home game against Bournemouth), or 4. Huddersfield would need 16 points from 7 games - this means winning at least five games, and losing not more than one (and they still have to play Peterborough at home, and Milton Keynes and Brighton away). So I expect that even if you got 18 or 19 points from the last 10 games you would still stand a reasonable chance of finishing second. So my assessment of the probabilities of finishing second are Southampton 65% Huddersfield 20% Peterborough 10% Milton Keynes 5% Bournemouth 0% If you don't finish second you are certain to be in the play offs, and I would think your chances are at least 1 in 3 of winning these if you go that route. So Southampton's probability of promotion, based on the situation as of today is 0.65 + 0.35 x 0.33 = 0.77 which equates exactly to odds of 2/7. So I see no reason to lay off your bets. I do see Saturday's game against Milton Keynes as a critical one in affecting these calculations. If Milton Keynes lose they will stand virtually no chance of finishing second, and Southampton's odds of promotion will certainly shorten. If you lose, the challenge of 18+ points from 9 games would be tougher. If you draw, you are (just about) on track. Do you agree with my logic?"

I think he will probably be fired if we don't get promoted. And he probably should be fired. His points per game total is okay, but not great. With our resources, we should be getting more points per game than most other (all?) teams in all divisions. I think we're about 80% to go up though, so it's a moot point. Btw, I don't totally dismiss the idea that he might get us promoted and still be fired. This would be seriously harsh. But if, for (exaggerated) example, the next stage of the plan is to spend £20m on new players then one might conclude Adkins isn't the man to do it. By way of analogy, I can well believe that the manager who is the right man to get us promoted from the Championship might not be the right man for Saints in the Premiership. I think the difference between the Championship and League One is less stark, but they are still very real

I reckon we're better than 1.67 points a game, so I'd take the games in hand. Of course, the closer we get to the end of the season, the more you might want to bank points. For example, if you asked me now if I'd take 1 point Plymouth away, I'd say no. But if by the time we've played 44 games, we only need 2 points to guarantee promotion then I'd say yes. Although, conversely, we might need to be to get 6 points from the last two games to stand any chance of automatic promotion...it's all very confusing... Nevertheless, I'd say we need 20 points from where we are now. We have 10 games left. So, you shouldn't "sell" a game in hand for anything less than 2 points.

No we don't. We need to end the season one point clear of Pboro, or maybe level, in all likelihood. So if we go five points clear, that means we can probably afford to screw up later in the season. I do get bored with everyone always seeming to say that every game is a "must win". It's like that absurd thread saying we may have to win all our remaining games to get promoted. It's total rubbish.

6 points would be okay. Any more would be great. 5 would not be a disaster, but would leave us with lots to do.

Pretty poor. Showing no width at all.

I'm still not sure the point you're trying to prove. You think a league in which everyone wins 50% and loses 50% of their matches is more competitive than a league in which everyone draws 100% of their matches? The former would mean "more teams are winning, up and down the league", but so what? It doesn't prove the league is harder.

Yes, that is pretty much exactly what I'm saying. Because the division is weaker this year, you may need 95 points to win it, 90 to come 2nd and 85 to make the play offs and 55 points to stay up (these are just guesses) To flip my Barca-Man U example slightly - if the worst 3 teams in the division were (doomed to relegation) amateur pub teams - they would all end up with about ten points each. Every other team in the division would expect to cane them. So you might then need 55+ points to stay up. Other than the fact that draws diminish the total number of points, it's basically a "zero-sum" game. For example, a 24 team division that finished as follows: 1. 138 points 2. 132 points 3. 126 points 4. 120 points 5. 114 points 6. 108 points .... ... 20. 60 points 21. 18 points 22. 12 points 23. 6 points 24. 0 points would not strike me as obviously being a competitive league. In fact, it would just be basically a series of mismatches. Yet, by your criteria this would be the toughest, hardest league known to man.

Mathematically then, all you are measuring is the number of draws. Draws diminish the total number of points distributed amongst the 24 teams. For example, it's technically possible to win the league with just 46 points and a high number of goals scored. I'd say this is actually a fair way to measure a tough division...alongside narrow wins (if there are lots of wins by 3, 4 or 5 goals by the same sort of teams...the division isn't that competitive). It can't be simultaneously: 1. harder to win the division 2. harder to get automatic promotion 3. harder to get into the play-offs 4. harder to win the play-offs 5. harder to avoid relegation unless there has been some incredible injection of talent that has passed your team by. My only argument really is that "points needed" (for anything) is not a measurement that's worth using if you're trying to measure how tough the league is. My Barca-Man Utd example is the extreme end of this. But you could also have a harder relegation battle with a lower points threshold to stay up. Assuming the number of draws is about constant, the points totals aren't a measurement of difficulty, they may even be a measure of ease.

Ok...even then the points stands. The top six can - on average - be better. But the overall division weaker. In fact, I'd argue that the points total required for automatic promotion going up shows the strength of the division is probably going down. (in my loopy Barca & Man Utd example, you'd need about 130 points for automatic promotion precisely because the division was so weak....a weak division means the relatively strong teams find it easier to notch up points.....)