Saint_Tony

4/1 for a Villa win,that's got to be the biggest price a home team has ever been against us in the Premier League. Everything points to a Saints win though. Any news on the potential injuries to Schneiderlin and Tadic?

Schneiderlin to Spurs £25 million Wanyama to Arsenal £18 million Clyne to Man Utd £20 million J Rod to Spurs £15 million Pelle to Liverpool £12 million Tadic to Liverpool £18 million Forster to Liverpool £15 million

Clyne starts, about time. He really has a great opportunity to make that right-back slot his own for the next few years. Just a shame that he won't be playing for us. Ridiculous that Bertrand didn't make the squad to.

Exactly, the same happened this time last year. We simply don't have the same squad depth as the likes of Arsenal, Man City and Utd. We will soon realise why we can't possibly finish in the top 4. Let's just hope Morgan is ok for Villa. If him and Davis are out we'll be severely weakened in midfield

We have no excuses for not getting at least a point. Villa will battle hard, but ultimately lack quality. A draw would be acceptable but we need to be winning games like this

Check his history? lol, do people actually do that?

Great weekend for us. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, as much as we love to laugh at their expense, the likes of Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool will start picking up points. I think some people are getting their hopes up too much. We are in a very strong position for now, but let's take it one game at a time. We're not the only team in this league capable of going on a big winning run

I'd guess around 72. So we're looking at another 47 points from 27 games, which still looks incredibly tough. 14 wins, 5 draws and 8 defeats. Swap a couple of wins for draws and we're looking at 6th and 7th, the margins are so fine. For now, we are top 6 contenders, but 4th isn't anything worth thinking about too much, we need to get at least 12 points from the next 7 games to stay in contention

Think they will scrape a win, but fair play to QPR who are giving it a real go

Even City lack squad depth on all areas, Kompany is a massive loss to them. Mangala doesn't look convincing at all, perhaps it's the pressure. Chelsea are the best side in this league by some distance, and so far it's hard to argue against us being second best

This is the turning point. A game in which we were struggling, and have managed to change things around. The sign of a great side. Delighted for Long. We are now genuine top 6 contenders.

I think 4 points from the next 2 games is a necessity in order to give us a cushion before the city/ars/utd games. But then let's not assume we won't get any points from those games. I'd hope for 2/3, a couple of draws would probably still keep us in 4th.

Our best hope for top 6 is for 2 teams from everton, liverpool and spurs to drop off the pace. Let Chelsea run away with it, even a draw against Liverpool would be a decent result for us. Everton put out a strong side last night so hopefully they might struggle too

To be fair, he said that they lost the game, so Rodgers did get it wrong, regardless of the performance

Doubt it would happen, but if the chance arose it would be stupid not to take him back as a back up for Pelle. This squad will be stretched, and whatever some think of him now, I have no doubt he would still score goals here. There are very few available proven premier league goalscorers, and whatever's going on with him at Liverpool, he hasn't turned 5hit overnight.Could be the difference between finishing in or outside the top 6

Bottling a game, even if it's highly unwinnable and against Real Madrid, doesn't show much ambition does it? I'd say it was pretty disgraceful really, and totally disrespectful to the fans. Rodgers is going to look very stupid if they don't get a result against Chelsea.

Pretty much bang on. Although for some it seems negative to dare to suggest we might only finish 8th, which would make it another good season. To do better we will need a good bit of luck. It's unlikely, but certainly not impossible

Interesting to see that after 12/13 games last season, only Arsenal had more than 24 points. You'd think that we should be on at least 25 after 13. 4 or 6 points from the next 2 and we're in a position where we can get away with a dip in form and remain top 4 by the turn of the year.

I also think 3-0 home win, but my cautious mindset will remain until 9.50pm on december 8th, that is when we will really know what this team is capable of

I'm just trying to stay grounded, getting a lot of comments about being negative. I think it will make it easier for me to accept a loss, too many people are getting ahead of ourselves thinking we are world beaters. Every team other than ourselves and Chelsea have had a few unexpected results, it's the nature of the game

We are certainly starting to get respect from the bookmakers. I just feel the city/arsenal/united week will tell us what we're capable of. We shouldn't fear any of them. 4 points from the next 2 and 3 defeats we could just about get away with to keep us in the top 6. Take 7/8 points, then we can start talking about top 6 and 4. People can keep calling me negative all they like, this is the best Saints side I've seen in 22 years. We are on the verge of something, but nothing more. It is still very early days, and as with last season, the real test will be against the sides who finished above us last season. Off the top of my head we took 9 points from 14 games (wins against Everton at home and Scousers away, draws at home to city, arsenal and man utd). That figure needs to be increased to around 15 or 16 points if we are going to be genuine top 4 challengers. The main positive is that we have a decent cushion already above the teams below. We probably need to average a bit over 1.5 points per game to get fourth.

Just find it funny how everyone is dismissing MP. Everyone was singing his praises last year, me and Glasgow were among a few who had doubts and were happy to see him go

Not sure, maybe I should predict us to win only 5 more games this season and finish 18th?

A disjointed mess is a massive exaggeration though, they're still in a decent position and will do ok. To suggest they will finish above us is hardly negative, they will probably finish 6th and us 7th. I would be interested to know where you think we will finish this season

Except they ended up winning, we can keep claiming MP is **** and has no plan b, they will still finish above us