After only playing three games in the last nineteen days Southampton have an incredible seven games in four weeks during March. In a jam packed month of fixtures in the Championship there are sure to be some surprise results. So my question is during March how many points do you realistically think Southampton will (or need to) pick up during March? Leeds United (A) Ipswich (H) Barnsley (H) Millwall (A) Hull (A) Doncaster (H) Blackpool (A) I am going for 13; anyone care to raise me?
15-17......13 points too few for a Saints team in form with only Hull and Blackpool in real contention. Would hope we wouldn't lose any..just hope we don't get too many draws.
Hopefully you are right Fran, but I think there will be some more twists and turns and strange results. Leeds and Blackpool away look the toughest fixtures to me.
Leeds are not in form at the moment. I hope we win the first few games in March to keep the momentum going and put pressure on the rest.
Tbf, we're not the only side with seven games this month. In fact, considering other teams have games in hand, I presume some of them will have eight games this month. As it is, I'm taking the first four of these seperately to the last three (as I initially took a group of six games, and we've now played two of those games. From Derby through to Millwall, I set a minimum target of 14 out of 18 - which is thus now 8 out of 12). I'd definately accept 5 from those last three - although a total of 4 draws this month will almost certainly see us knocked out of the top 2. But then again, games against Pompey, Posh, Palace and Coventry - as well as Reading and Boro - next month should hopefully allow us to reverse that again.
I agree St_brendy, other teams have a lot more games and I think this will be to their detriment. I also think with Adkins' siege mentality we will be prepared and there is no reason we cannot win all of the games (like Joe said), however it is such a tight league to call and every team has the ability to beat the other. Win your home games and don't get beaten in the away ones has to be the staple. 13/14 points would be approximately 2 per game better than every Championship side at current rate.
To go up automatically I think 5 wins, a draw and a loss will be enough to see us remain in the top two. That would be 16 points. I think we will get 13-15 but would hope we can take 19 which would give us clear breathing space. We need to not lose against Leeds, Hull and Blackpool and win all the rest of the games.
It certainly is but Warnock will have been working hard with them and he is a shrewd operator in this division plus they may well get loan enforcements. After going there last time in the freezing weather to watch a poor match, from an expensive but poor view, on a poor pitch, which we lost 1-0, I would love a win.
Win your home games, draw your away games. It's been the mantra since the start, and I still believe that doing that from here on in will be enough. We may need to turn one of those away draws into a win, just to push us slightly closer to that 90 point line (especially as we currently have one more away game than home game).
I remember the run in last season when Huddersfield were pushing us every inch of the way and we had to deliver win after win - I think this season will be the same except there are probably 6 teams chasing us We worked really well under pressure last year and expect the same response from near enough the same group of mamnagers and players
I don't think we're going to need to finish the season quite as fantastically as we finished last season - there are too many teams chasing us, who'll all take points off of each other - but I do think it's an important issue to bring up. We've been in this position just 12 months ago, and came through it very well. We have the experience. Yes it was against a lower class of opposition, but we still have that experience to draw upon. Not only can that not really be said of our rivals, but it's also something which our rival fans appear to be over-looking (just like many of them at the start of the season over-looked the fact that we'd be starting the season with confidence and momentum). We've been there, done it, got the t-shirt.
we have turned the corner- full squad fit for saturday ( no mishaps in training please ), there are no teams that we can not beat. I think 19 points
I think we will see a maximum of 17pts (where we beat everyone except draws away to Hull and Blackpool) and a minimum of 11pts (where we win our home games, draw away to Leeds, Millwall and Hull and loose away to Blackpool). Although I hope its not the latter, I think it will probably be somewhere in the middle. One game at a time though, and next its Leeds which is not going to be an easy one!
