Would you at this moment in time, after our great start, take a play-off finish at the end of the season?
I'd bite your hand off if you offered me it. Playoffs would still be an amazing achievement - I'm expecting a finish of 10th-14th.
Yep,but only if we dont have to play Derby, although it would be good to get revenge! I got drenched that night :-(
I will quote what Nicola said at the same time last year, 'Only if you can also guarantee that we win.'
I have a feeling we are about to enter a sticky patch, after which our league position wont look quite so good, so yeah! bl**dy right I would!
Of course we will hit a sticky patch sometime, but under Adkins I don't think it will be prolonged. He seems to know what he is doing, which as Saints fans we may find unsettling. Points on the board are everything, stored against harsh winter days. We are good enough to be in top six so we must be patient if a few games go by without a win.
Very true. My thoughts are that West Ham will finish top and second place is up for grabs. Another 60 points from our remaining 40 games should guarantee a play-off spot going on past seasons. So with 20 home wins I think we will not have to worry too much about our away form !!
Where I think we will finish and what I would be happy with are 2 separate questions. At this moment in time I don't see 6 teams in this league better than us, so I believe that we are on course for at least the play offs. Having said that, I will be delighted if we stay well clear of the bottom of the table all season and finish anywhere in mid-table or above.
I agree, our away form may not always be great. We may have to settle for a couple of draws at some stage.
Before season started, I would consider success to be never toying with relegation and finishing about 13-16th. Top 6 would be a wild dream. Now: 7-10 th hard to take and disappointing, 3-6 okay but heart attack time, expect top 2. Unreasonable..almost certainly, but the result of our great start. We have 15 points after 6 games. How much more reasonable our hopes would be if we'd dropped points early and had 15 points after 8 games. The team only have themselves to blame.
I see most of you are still pretending we will be happy with mid-table, no chnace, if we end up mid-table at the end of the season I will be most unhappy, it would mean we lose more games than we win from now on and most on here would be happy with that?? typical saints fans, we are now part of a new club that doesn't strive for mediocrity. If we don't finish top 6 I will let Lee Barnard re-arrange my face with a bottle of finest claret. Start believing underachievers.
This isn't a wind up at all, but even if you finish in the play-offs, I wouldn't be confident of you promoting. The reason is simply that Hampshire as a county has an absolutely horrendous play-off record. Farnborough, Aldershot, Fleet, yourselves, Havant & Waterlooville have all lost in the play offs in recent years, in the case of the first three, multiple times each (I should know, I was at the play-off final last year where Farnborough lost to Ebbsfleet ). I just don't get why Hampshire teams are so awful at play offs. I think every season since the 03/04 season, at least one Hampshire team has got in the play offs too. I've got the full list if anyone's interested. I can't actually think of any occasion where a Hampshire team has got promoted through them. However, I guess eventually a Hampshire team has to go up through the play-offs maybe, so it could be you. If it means a Hampshire team in the Premier League then so much the better, particularly if we get promoted alongside you as champions!
We are an entirely different team than we have ever been. Every hoodoo we've had in the past has been broken. I would like to say we would beat the Hampshire play-off hoodoo, but I'm hoping for auto as I'm not sure I'd survive a play-off final. Cortese is on record as saying his heart couldn't take it...having seen how worried he is at league games i think he could be right.