10 Games to Go

 

Yep, Up the Table would be good...

Ten games to go to save our arses and not end up in the Championship next season.  To be honest, we deserve to be 10 points adrift for the way we’ve played for the vast majority of the season, but we still have a very good chance of getting out of it due in no small part, to the fact that we have picked a very good season to be this shit.  Whilst we’ve been bad, there are 8 other teams who haven’t been much better than us and the usual wisdom of ’40 points’ doesn’t really apply.  You might need 40 but if four teams out of the nine get adrift and you’re one of them, you might only need something embarrassing like 32 – unlikely though that may be.

Ruben Selles’ Saints are on 23 points after 28 games, 3 points from safety and only 4 points behind Crystal Palace who are 12^th.  It’s a strange one alright.

Before I start looking into the games that we have left, I have to say that the feeling that I have had for quite a while (since Nottingham Forest at home under Nathan Jones) is that we are going down.   Too many 50/50 games have been lost and we are now looking to pick up points in more difficult games. 

I'm the Most Out-of_Depth Manager Ever

I know that our last relegation out of the Premier league was 18 years ago so it’s not relevant in one sense, but the similarities between 04/05 and 22/23 are striking.  Three managers in a season for starters and when we went down in 2005, our second manager of the season, the painfully out of his depth Steve Wigley had a run of favourable fixtures and failed to win any of them (aside from one against the Skates).  

Not beating any of Palace, West Brom, Birmingham, Man City (they were average then) and Newcastle (so were they) at home, was ultimately what killed us. That run, alongside a half-arsed contribution from Harry Redknapp was what left us needing to beat Manchester United at home on the last day to have any chance of staying up at all.  

Hold My Beer Steve

Compare and contrast Steve Wigley with our second manager of this season, Nathan Jones.  Painfully out of his depth - check, Shit results against average teams - check.  Defeats to Brighton, Forest, Villa and Wolves at home, as well as Liverpool, Fulham and Brentford away, managing just one win, away at Everton.  In my opinion, the 3 points from those 8 games makes it more likely than not that we are going to have 46 games next season instead of 38.  All is not lost though as Ruben Selles seems a step up from Ballsack Redknapp.

What a Pair

So, we have 23 points and I reckon we need 38 to stand a decent chance of staying up.

• West Ham away
• Manchester City at home
• Crystal Palace at home
• Arsenal away
• Bournemouth at home
• Newcastle away
• Nottingham Forest away
• Fulham at home
• Brighton away
• Liverpool at home

So, 4 wins and 3 draws.  Where are we going to get that?

Of the 10 games remaining there are four against our relegation rivals, two against teams who we really should be looking to beat even though they doing well and four against the big boys up near the top of the league, where anything will quite frankly be a bonus.  So, split the fixtures into three groups.

The Relegation Rivals

Guess Who's Back

The 50/50 games against ropey teams is where we’ve fallen down this season but this has to change.  We have two home games against the relegation rivals in Palace and Bournemouth. Our home form this season against this section of teams has been absolutely shite with only one win, against Leicester.  Damaging home defeats against Forest, Everton and Wolves are what has basically put us in the shit this season.  I don’t see Palace and Bournemouth at home as being negotiable - they are games that we have to win. Palace haven’t been that bad this season but it’s been bad enough for them to bin off Patrick Vieira and replacing with 75-year-old Roy Hodgson who was too old for them two years ago. Hoping for a new manager bounce off a manager who would probably end up in hospital if he tried to bounce anywhere, is mad and could go either way.  Palace have ten games left and a ridiculous eight of them are against the relegation threatened sides below them.

If we lose to fucking Bournemouth then I’m all in favour of pulling out of the remaining games because we'll deserve to get relegated.  That’ll be a game which will be won by whatever team doesn’t shit the bed.  Bournemouth have a habit of doing that against us and we have a habit of doing it whenever there’s a game that we are almost expected to get something out of.  

Away from home we have Forest and West Ham.  Oddly, away from home this season we’ve picked up wins at Everton, Leicester and Bournemouth so we have to be targeting points from these away games as well and we certainly need to win one of them. West Ham have been dodgy all season despite having a squad which should be comfortably in upper mid-table and they have Europa Conference League distractions. Their run in Europe has kept Moyes in a job in much the same way that a few cup wins kept Nathan Jones at Saints for about a month too long. We need to go to West Ham with no inferiority complex and go for the win because they are there for the taking.

Forest away will doubtlessly be an absolutely abysmal game but again, we need to target three points to make up for the shitshow at St Mary’s back in January, in a game that is in the conversation when we’re discussing worst ever Saints performance in the Premier League.  They are shite and we have to show up for this game.  No passive opening 20 minutes, fuckin’ get into them.

Win all four games against the teams in the relegation scrap and we will undoubtedly be safe.

Target - 10 points

The Over-Achievers

This Might Actually Help Quite a Lot

We have a couple of games against this seasons’ over performing teams with a home game against Fulham and a trip to Brighton.  Both of these games are difficult but certainly they are winnable, especially Fulham at home as they are not going to have Mitrović playing for them in all likelihood as he’s due a long ban for shoving the ref, like Bruno Fernandes didn’t get.  I have no idea how Fulham are where they are and the 2-1 last-minute defeat we had at Craven Cottage was one of the more frustrating performances of the season.

Brighton, or Southampton 2016 to give them their full name, have been very much better than us this season, but we always do well at the Amex, so regardless of the fact that they are btter than us and drubbed us earlier in the season at St.Mary’s,, it’s a game that we can go into with a bit of confidence regardless.

Target - 3 points

The Super League Clubs (plus Sportswashers)

Then we have the big boys. The biggest write-off is probably Arsenal away because we never get a thing there and this season, with them flying at the top of the league, is unlikely to be any exception.  There is a slight chance I guess because they do have a tendency to go behind at home and maybe if we got the first goal, we could shithouse our way to a draw.  I doubt it though unless they are in full Premier League title choke mode. 

The home game against City is not going to be a repeat of the Carabao Cup game.  I can’t see Pep leaving the door open for us to get anything out of that game.  Put it this way, Kyle Walker won’t be at centre back and Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland won’t be resting on the bench.  Even with those superstars playing though, City have a had a few games this season where it just hasn’t happened but even so, you have to have absolutely everything go your way on the day so I can’t see it.

For the away trip to Newcastle though I might fancy us for a sneaky point at St James’s Park.  We owe them for the Carabao Cup semi-final as well and a proper 90 minute performance might see us get something.  

I am really hoping it doesn’t come down to playing Liverpool on the last game of the season and needing a win.  Losing to the Scousers and having our relegation confirmed would not be my idea of a fun afternoon.  I’m sure that Virgil would be very upset if the club that he shat on got relegated.

Target - 2 points

Overall target - 38 points

I feel that 38 will almost certainly be enough to stay up regardless of what anyone else does and if we do that, then Ruben should be made a Freeman of the City or whatever.  I still feel that the odds are against us and those odds are going to rise sharply by 4.30 on Sunday if we fail to get anything out of West Ham.  Lose that and we aren’t getting 38 and we’ll be hoping the target comes down due to the ineptitude of others.

Can we do it?  Is it possible?  Absolutely it is. 

Will we do it?

I personally feel that we have left ourselves with too much to do and whilst Ruben Selles has overseen an improvement, I still don’t see enough to think we’ll get out of it.  Our habit of shitting the bed in 50/50 games has not gone away and it absolutely has to, starting on Sunday.  My opinion that we are going down, will no doubt ebb and flow as the games get played.  As we stand right now I can’t see it but obviously, I hope I’m wrong.  For all I know we might find a goalscoring hero and win the next 5 games and have a nice quiet end to the season.  Yeah, right.

If you use the old adage of trying to find three worse teams than us then I’m looking at Bournemouth, Forest and Everton and if I could choose three to go then it’s West Ham, Leicester and Leeds.  Honestly, if Brendan Rodgers gets Leicester relegated, I will piss myself laughing.  However, at this moment in time, I see Saints, Bournemouth and Forest in the Championship next season.

Up the fuckin’ Saints