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Where will we finish?


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Where will we finish  

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  1. 1. Where will we finish



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Don't mean to seem pessimistic but can't help but feel like we're always gonna be a way off 1st/2nd in the League now so i think Playoffs at best is what we can achieve.

 

I don't think we'll win the playoffs either cause we aren't one of those lucky playoff teams (aka blackpool).

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Why people so scared of the play-offs?

 

How many teams have beaten us over a two-leg aggregate situation this season?

 

Tranmere for one ... are there any more?

 

Obviously we all want to go up in auto but I would fancy us to beat anybody over two legs, and we didn't do too badly in last year's cup final did we?

 

If we couldn't beat Bompey in a one off game in front of 40k Saints fans at Old Trafford would we 'deserve' to go up?

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Don't mean to seem pessimistic but can't help but feel like we're always gonna be a way off 1st/2nd in the League now so i think Playoffs at best is what we can achieve.

 

I don't think we'll win the playoffs either cause we aren't one of those lucky playoff teams (aka blackpool).

 

It is a big IF but if we can win our 2 games in hand on Bournemouth and don't get beat by them at Dean court as well as winning our game in hand on Huddersfield we will be in 2nd place. I cannot see us catching Brighton as they simply do not drop enough points and we will probably drop around the same as them on the run in so they are always going to be 6-8 points ahead which is probably not enough for us to put any kind of pressure on them.

 

2nd place it is but as long as we go up in some capacity that will do for me.

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I've just been on the BBC Predictor site & the result I predicted was that we finished 4th, what I found annoying was you predict a match that Brighton played & no problem, Brighton wouldn't lose, make a prediction for Saints you just dont know!!! Huddersfield are a team I think that are just picking up the momentum & are a big threat to us. I think one of the problems we have is that we aren't consistant enough & that isn't just this season I think last season was the same.

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win our games in hand and we're second. It's in our own hands. Simple as that!

 

Not quite that simple, if Charlton win their games in hand they will be above us. But it is in our hands because we still have to play them twice.

 

Brighton look like they have it won, I predict a straight shoot out between us and Charlton. I'm hoping the Chris Powell revival is just a honeymoon period, if it's not it's going to be a hell of a fight.

 

A Bournemouth v Saints play-off final would be cool though.

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Quite surprised that some of the more positive and knowledgeable poster are in the "Play-Off losers" camp.

 

Takes a while for some people to rewire their mindsets and realise things are different now. My old man was worrying Carlisle were going to equalise yesterday. I had no such concerns. Times change people and we're on the up. And if you can't see we're going up automatically this year then you're not really on the bus...you're just stinking up the vibes at the bus stop...

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In all honesty, on current performances over five matches, I feel we will lose in the play-off final. Not because I do not think that we are not good enough, but because the team is underperforming. Without Lallana and Morgan in the side, as in the first half yesterday, the team looks bereft of ideas and mission. Our shooting skills are quite abysmal when it matters. If the team do not improve in this basic technique we are going to miss out. It is easy to score against Posh who leak goals but we should have had several against Carlisle. Get it sorted, Nigel. Sunday morning shooting practice until corrected, is Doc Eelpie's prescription.

 

Does it matter? Yes, we are back to relying on Ricky for goals (and thank goodness he's found his goal-scoring self again) Our rivals, Charlton, Bournemouth and Huddersfield are finding form at the right time. BWP (who we should have signed) is free scoring at Charlton and they are our main threat imo. Our two matches with them towards the end of season will define our season.

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my heart says 2nd, my head says play offs. We'll get to the final, we will beat most teams in this league over 2 games, it's then down to the day of the final, i hope our JPT final will hold us in good stead for that. I've had a feeling for a long time we will meet Bournemouth in the play off final, a mass media frenzy dubbing it David v Goliath as small club take on their illistrious much bigger neighbours, the whole country and media want a Bournemouth win, but we put them in their place and run out easy 3-0 winners, hopefully......

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In all honesty, on current performances over five matches, I feel we will lose in the play-off final. Not because I do not think that we are not good enough, but because the team is underperforming. Without Lallana and Morgan in the side, as in the first half yesterday, the team looks bereft of ideas and mission. Our shooting skills are quite abysmal when it matters. If the team do not improve in this basic technique we are going to miss out. It is easy to score against Posh who leak goals but we should have had several against Carlisle. Get it sorted, Nigel. Sunday morning shooting practice until corrected, is Doc Eelpie's prescription.

 

Does it matter? Yes, we are back to relying on Ricky for goals (and thank goodness he's found his goal-scoring self again) Our rivals, Charlton, Bournemouth and Huddersfield are finding form at the right time. BWP (who we should have signed) is free scoring at Charlton and they are our main threat imo. Our two matches with them towards the end of season will define our season.

 

Although I really doubt that Morgan would have started either of the last 2 matches even if he'd been fully fit.Hammond and Chaplow is NA's preferred pairing,just as Jaidi and Fonte are the preferred centre backs. Whether we agree with this or not doesn't matter, that's the way of it.NA seems to have a preferred age group for his "first XI". Anyway we'll just have to wait and see how it all pans out at the end of the season because if we don't get promotion then I guess NA will pay the price for his choices.

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good point about Carlisle yesterday, though the game was very poor we could have played until Christmas and they wouldn't have equalised.

So far this season the days of last minute panic and disappointment is history.

We are a strong team and the opposition is more worried about us than we are about them.

 

I'm very keen for us to avoid the play off lottery and go up in 2nd, but if we can't do that no one would fancy coming to a packed St Marys or attempting to do us over two legs.

Forget Boro, Everton, Villa, Leeds etc - our worst recent case has been conceding two dodgy late penalties - and we still got a draw against a form side away from home.

 

My worst fear would be a play off final against Oldham - football is a fickle mistress who likes to remind you that 6-0 at their place counts for nothing in a one off game...

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Hang in there and it's whoever holds there nerve in the final 10 games. So far though it hasn't quite been promotion form all season so probably 3rd or fourth. I can see us losing to Huddersfield in the final after being 2 goals up. It's just the way we do things especially on telly.

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If we are still in touch by April I would expect us to finish 2nd. Now until April we face a tough run of games with 7 being away and only 3 at home.

 

Our run-in from April onwards looks good with 5 home and only 3 away and with the last 3 home games being Bristol Rovers, Hartlepool and Walsall.

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realistically if we are to go up automatically we need to win 12 or 13 of our remaining 18 games and avoid defeat in the games against our promtion rivals. I cant help but feel taking points at Brighton, Charlton, Bournemouth away is going to be difficult, not impossible, but difficult.

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Quite surprised that some of the more positive and knowledgeable poster are in the "Play-Off losers" camp.

 

That's what I voted, not because I wish for it but because I fear that we shall just miss out on second place and I have usually found that winning the playoffs does not go to the most deserving team. One shirt-pull or a fluked own-goal and it's all over until next season. When you look at the current top teams, two from Brighton, Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Saints, Charlton will probably go up automatically with the others involved in the playoffs. Peterborough, Colchester, MK Dons might also get a look in. I think it will all be down to our away results against Brighton and Bournemouth and our two games against Charlton.

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I firmly believe we will get an automatic promotion spot, whether 1st or 2nd will depend upon Brighton's ability to keep putting in the performances. Why, for the following reasons

 

  • Ricky Lambert, a poor first half to the season, but go back and add the effect he showed against exeter / carlisle and you are in different terrotory.
  • The effect of the poor pre-season and the points thrown away at the early stage of the season. Very lucky to still have matters fully in our own hands but when you consider those awful early season results, we should be quids in.
  • With the exception of Fonte, we have defensive back ups that many would argue should be selected first.
  • Oxo and Lallana, an attacking pair that will get you goals, just having one of these players would be seen as exceptional for any other decent league 1 team.
  • We know the issues with midfield and we can be very positive when all are fit, add Guly to the equation and the defence / midfield looks far better than the first half of the season.

I am pretty comfortable with Adkins decisions even though we have not been tearing up trees of late. His substitution of Chaplow yesterday could well have been decisive but there seemed little he could do about the poor performance. I am really concerned about Kelvin and his communication issues, but if the rest of the team are playing well, he should be spectating more than playing. Just look at all those extremely poor performances at the start of the season that we can put down to pre-season and look at the position we were in after half the games played. Everything is starting to come right and there is no reason we cannot do better than that first half, giving us that automatic spot.

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If you give all teams 2 points for the games in hand, which is about what teams at the top average the table looks like this:

 

Brighton - 60pts

Bournemouth - 53pts

Huddersfield - 53pts

Charlton - 53pts

Saints - 52pts

Oldham - 48pts

Rochdale - 47pts

MK Dons - 45pts.

 

With 16 games to play, we play Charlton home and away, Brighton away, Bournemouth away and MK Dons at home, about 1/3rd of our games against other promotion hopefuls. I think it's a straight shoot out between Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Charlton and Saints for second. I cant see anyone catching Brighton. On paper it looks very tough for Saints with so many away games against our rivals, but changing the habit of a lifelong saints fan, I'm confident. Saints to go up in second.

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just done the bbc predictor thing, i have us finishing 6th

 

brighton

charlton

bournemouth

peterborough

huddersfield

SAINTS

 

we are well capable of beating anyone over 2 games, so time to look for manchester flights & hotels i think :)

 

i tell you what mate. if someone guaranteed me we would win the playoffs and have bournemouth in the semi's i would rather that than win the league! 3 quality days right there

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