Saints are effictively one point away from safety after Aston Villa's defeat at home to Chelsea on Saturday lunchtime.

Saints travel up to Sunderland knowing that a draw will mean that barring a catastrophe at home to Stoke the following weekend their Premier League safety will be assured.

As it stands at the moment Wigan can get 41 points and of course another point will only give us 40, however due to Villa playing at Wigan next weekend, both of them would then be able to get "more" points than us, I emphasise the word "more" as of course we would be level with Villa on 40 if we were to return today with that point.

If we did, then Wigan would need to get the maximum six points from their final two games to overtake us and in achieving that they would of course have to beat Aston Villa meaning that we would stay above the midlands club on goal difference, assuming of course that we didnt waste that advantage, that would mean that Villa's defeat at Wigan would need to be at least 12 goals better than ours at home to Stoke, effectively if they lost 1-0, we would need to suffer a 13-0 defeat to Stoke, in reality it wont happen, touch wood.

Of course this is the most complicated way of staying up before the final day, the simplest way would just to be to beat Sunderland and damn their impudence as a famous quote from Blackadder once said ( The damn you impudence bit I'm on about as far as Im aware Sunderland werent about in the 16th Century) that would ensure that not only would we stay up but wouldnt suffer the ignomity of doing so by the smallest of margins table wise by finishing fourth from bottom.

But of course we and other clubs could all be put out of our misery on Tuesday night should Wigan lose or fail to beat Arsenal, again given our superior goal difference over the FA Cup Winners it would need a 12 goal turnaround.

All in all we are only one step from safety, so near yet so far, sadly as we have been for the last few weeks.     

Photo: Action Images

slynch added 10:05 - May 12 You neglected to summarize what could happen if Saints won both games!?!
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SaintNick added 10:12 - May 12 Yes because its a story on what we need to do about avoiding relegation which is quite simple, if I wanted to summarize what would happen if we won both games it would take a lot longer as there are a lot of permutations at the moment
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ExiledSupporter added 16:36 - May 12 Listening to the radio commentary on the match now, the chances of us losing both matches and without scoring seems to be mounting!
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SM7 added 19:53 - May 12 You are all missing the point,SAINTS are safe mathematically as we have 40 points with a superior goal difference If saints lost at home to Stoke we would still have 40 points,if Wigan beat arsenal and go to 38 points and won their last game against villa then they would have 41 points but villa would still have 40 points and be below us.Even if Villa beat Wigan 11-0 which would give them a better goal difference than us then Wigan will go down....Simples we are SAFE.If Villa and Wigan draw then Wigan would have 39 points assuming they beat Arsenal and be relegated. COYR

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