SaintBobby

I'm one of the positive types, in that I think the bookies are right and that we are very likely indeed to be promoted - probably in 2nd place. That said, we have underperformed quite badly this season - or at least for the first 2/3 of it overall. Appreciate the "we'll walk this league" meme has become an in joke on here, but we really should be walking this League. At the start of the season, I'd have said 100 points was a reasonable target. The resources we have at our disposal are just enormous compared to our immediate competitors and the team shouldn't have needed much time to "gell". That was a fair excuse last August as we had such an influx of new players, but the basic line-up this season is very similar to last season. I think the reason poor results (such as Tranmere and Walsall) provoke such negative outbursts is that they heap more bad news on what has actually been quite a poor overall performance and the margin for error at the so-called business end of the season is now pretty tiny. Although I have some sympathy for the OP's point about "we can only do what we can do, we can't affect our competitors other than when we play them", the very strong performances of Brighton and Bournemouth show how weak this division is. Both those sides deserve credit for doing so spectacularly well, but it does underscore Saints rather underwhelming points haul so far.

Very pleasing bounceback after Tuesday. Shame so many of our competitors won as well, but our game was one of the toughest in the division, so banana skin avoided. The top six do now have quite a buffer over the rest. I still have us as clear favourites to get 2nd...and havent given up on catching Brighton yet....

No offence to the administrators, but its shocking tbh. I don't expect even free sites to crash like this - and this has been a repeated issue. Embarrassing, frankly.

Sack him now. We can still salvage our season. Martin O'Neill might be able to get us up. (thought i'd get this in before this nonsense gets locked)

Saints started the evening at 5/6 to win and are now 20/19 Weird - 45 minutes gone, no score and no major shift on Saints' odds. Might reflect that we seem to have done everything but score in 1st half?

A bit unfair. But only a bit. The 5 year plan is, in my view, a walking, talking duck. It's not a "sitting duck". A sitting duck strongly implies that others can take an easy potshot and kill you off. If we fail to get promoted and work our way up the divisions, the fault will be our own. Frankly, it shouldn't be coming down to an iffy offside decision or a dodgy penalty claim - but either of these things could now cost us dearly. Southampton should have been on target to secure around 100 points in League One this season. Even if we go up as champions, we will definitely fall short of this points total, which in my view should not have been considered an outrageous target in August. I would say, however, that as fans we can't have it both ways round. If Lambert, Schneiderlin, Lallana, Fonte et al are that good, you can be confident that we'll still be promoted, and with room to spare. If they aren't that good, then why would we really miss them next year? I think the only thin on anything approaching a knife-edge is whether we get promoted. If we don't, our present highly paid squad will have failed to deliver and we will need to rebuild. They will have failed and we can't surely claim that we had the best possible squad but it was all Cortese's fault for not holding a fans' forum or whatever.... Most likely thing though is that we go up automatically - probably in 2nd place, but quite possibly in first. But even if we nick 1st place with, say, 87 points to Brighton's 86, I don't think we should get carried away about next year. Saints are making very, very hard work over what should have been a very simple task.

He thinks we will probably be promoted - he puts the chances at 55% on the post-match Swindon thread. I'm assuming that we can all agree that "doable" is a subset of "probable"...

I agree. There's little sign they'd sell. But frankly, even if they did, it would not be anything like as disastrous as the administration and near death experience. Whoever bought the club would have a debt-free outfit with an incredibly large (and disproportionately affluent) fanbase for the third division. It would be an enormous disappointment all round, but not getting promoted (and then even being sold) would not be - to quote Alpine - "a disaster like no other" (at least not in quantitative terms) In fact, it wouldn't even be the biggest disaster to hit Saints in the last 2 years. But don't worry, we will very likely be promoted. Even if we're not, the present owners are unlikely to sell. I'd put Saints not being promoted AND then the Liebherrs selling up shop at about 40/1.

Agree with this. 6 points = fantastic 4 points = that'll do 3 points = a bit disappointing 2 or less = big groan

Alpine, don't let anger subsume you. Remain calm, take deep breaths... We are in agreement...we both think Saints will probably be promoted and we both think our chances will be even greater if we beat Colchester...

Don't fall back into bad habits, Alpine. As you mentioned on the Swindon thread, you think our promotion chances are 55%. Not only do you already think that promotion is do-able, you actually think it is likely. It obviously becomes likelier still if we can beat Colchester...

Seeing the highlights, I agree with this. Harding seems terribly out of position and then doesn't get tight enough to stop the shot. Kelvin should have saved it, but the defence should have done more too. I also didn't appreciate the incredibly tight angle Barnard scored from. Into the starting XI...surely?

You may want to re-read my initial post, perhaps you didn't have the opportunity to look at it too closely the first time. (a). unless I misunderstood, you said you had occasion to fail to distinguish between a 55% chance and a 0% chance. (b). I'm not aware of any circumstance at all where the prevailing view is that "positive event X" has an Y% chance of happening, but you think it has a higher than Y% chance of happening. Feel free to tell me otherwise, but someone who has views always (or virtually always)on the downside is....how to put this gently....a bit odd. ©. who said realism and optimism are different sides of the same coin??? All I said was that people tend to prefer to be surrounded by optimists - or at least be surrounded by realists - rather than be surrounded by pessimists. Optimism and realism are very different things, but generally people prefer others who adopt one of these two approaches rather than a relentlessly pessimistic approach. That's not rational necessarily, but just a general observation. I thought I was just summarising a few agreed general facts. I'm really not seeking to lecture you at all. I'm just worried about you. But, as I said, there are some hopeful signs on this thread that you're beginning to come to terms with the problem and that's a very encouraging first step. Good luck and keep it up...

Am I right to assume that the Liebherr-Cortese five year plan was two seasons to get out of League One and then three seasons to get promoted from the Championship? Are we merely supposed to be in the PL at the end of the five years? Or is the plan that we're "established" in the PL by then? If the former, we're on schedule. If the latter, we're probably behind.

I'm happy to take that if you can confirm. Although to be honest, you'd be better just to back against Saints being promoted on betfair - where you can still gets odds of 2/1. (e.g. your ten quid stake would yield a £20 return from betfair, but only a £10 return from me) This does leave you exposed to Saints getting promoted via the play-offs, but that's easy to hedge. If Saints do get to the play-offs, but three or four quid on us to win them (at likely odds of 5/2) Alternatively, I'll happily take your tenner bet, because I can transform it into a guaranteed profit of at least £5 with three clicks of a mouse (essentially just by following the two steps I recommend above)

Alpine, I think the "outrage" (or more usually "annoyance") is not so much that you tend to be negative but that: (a). as you've conceded, your negativity often isn't really within the realm of statistical reality (or even internal consistency) (b). there is no instance - none at all that I am aware of - of you ever being even marginally optimistic side on anything Saints-related at all. For example, not a single match thread ever in which we go a goal down and you say "plenty of time to go, we should be able to pull this back". No analysis thread ever in which you say "actually, I think Brighton/Bournemouth/Huddersfield are looking a bit shaky as we reach the run in." That's pretty amazing given the many thousands of posts you've racked up. Even if you can cite a couple of counter-examples, they will amount to an absolutely tiny proportion of your colossal number of overall posts. ©. in any walk of life, people prefer to be surrounded by optimists (or at least realists) rather than relentless pessimists. Probably particularly true of football fans. When the relentless pessimist's incessant doom-saying is clearly based on a failure to maintain any consistent grip on likely or probable outcomes, people start to find the person's presence grating, irritating, annoying and possible even worry for the person's mental health.

You're right - 75% for automatic is about my shout. The markets have us at 4/11 for promotion by any means (i.e. about 75% - but that includes maybe a 7-10% of promotion via the playoffs?). And therefore 11/4 for us not going up at all. I can get slightly better odds from the markets than I can from you, I'm afraid. That's why I said if anyone wildly disagrees with my percentages, I'd take a wager. If you don't disagree with them wildly, I may get better odds from betfair.

No, don't agree. Although the "champions" league is misnamed, the fairest way to decide the best teams is League position. I would merge the Champs Lge and the Europa Lge, however.

And that was the ref's first ever league game? Welcome to the Football League....

Aren't they doing a fair job of scrapping hard for their lives and possibly engineering a great escape from relegation? 3-0 to Saints though IMHO

Lallana (n) - naturally skillful midfield maestro, adept at securing promotions for underperforming team Llama (n) - a South American camelid, widely used as a pack and meat animal by Andean cultures since pre-hispanic times HTH

Huge expectations mixed with several years of struggle and - so far this season - slightly disappointing results, throw in a pinch of people realising how vital promotion is this year and you have a nervy home crowd. This is made even worse by being at the "business end" of the season. (Maybe we always start the season so badly because we think of August and September as the "leisure end" of the season?)

Ahhhh, bless....give him a break, suewhistle. The first step to overcoming a problem is admitting you have one. And in his last few posts on here, Alpine takes the first few steps towards admitting he has a problem. I, for one, am rooting for him.

Start with Schneiderlin and Barnard for sure. Jaidi was immense today, but assuming he needs resting soon. I thought Hammond was pretty good today, so I'd drop Chaplow.

Lol. I'd say equating odds of 55% with 0% counts as more than a "bit" of an overreaction. In fact, I'd say it was an utterly monumental over-reaction... But as long as you admit you are prone to these extreme, wild, colossal and - frankly - innumerate overreactions while Saints games are in progress, then at least people can discount the opinions you are expressing accordingly.....