Many Saints fans may have a few delusions of grandeur at the moment, but the first aim should be to get off to a good start and make sure we aren't dragged into a relegation fight.

There is nothing wrong with having realistic targets in fact every one should have them be they the Chairman of a football club in the Premier league or an individual who just wants to improve his lifestyle.

But any target should involve gradual progression through a series of steps rather than massive leaps forward, of course some steps are bigger than others, but in any situation a good adage is that when you build a house you put in the foundations first and then build on them with the roof going on last, try to put the roof on any earlier and it wont work.

So Saints season this year should be a series of small targets which individually will all drive towards a far bigger one.

The first target then should be to get off to a good start, as we know last season we got off to a terrible one and that left us not only playing catch up for most of the season, but even when we dragged ourselves clear of the relegation battle, we still had one eye over our shoulder right until the last week of the season, although in fairness such was the league that we were far from alone in this and that perhaps tells us something.

Last seasons hard start last season in terms of fixtures wasn't as damaging as it could have been though, defeats to Man City, Man td & Arsenal usually happen during a season to most clubs, it was just that for us they were 3 of the first 4 games, in fact the most damaging defeat of that opening four was the one at home to Wigan.

This season we of course have a far easier opening spell, but the problem with that is that with all four teams being ones likely to be around us come the final table, unlike a year ago, we cant afford to lose them,.

So three points against West Brom was just what the doctor ordered, our first target for the season has to be to maintain a healthy 1.5 points per game average against the other 13 teams who are not part of the big six, if we do that then relegation should not be an issue given that we will pick up the odd point or two against the big guns.

This being the case then a good start for Saints in the opening four games has to be six points, the win at West Brom has put us well ahead and if we now follow that up against Sunderland with a home win, then we would have the six points needed from the opening spell in the bag and a great opportunity to get well ahead of the game from the start.

Of course there are those that will say our sights are set that much higher this term but given how close the middle of the Premier is at the moment, it doesn't take a lot of extra points to hit the top ten, West rom in 8th were only 8 ahead of us, but we also have to temper that by the sobering thought that relegated Wigan were only 5 behind, the line between success and failure in the Premier League is now very thin.

But these figures show a clear blueprint for the season, build your season by that 1.5 average and then pick up points against the top six and you can strive towards a little more than just survival, of course this being football this isn't an exact science, last season 32 out of our 41 points were achieved against the bottom 14 clubs, that's way below the average needed, luckily we got 9 against the top six which kept our heads above water, but can we guarantee that every season, personally I would prefer to keep the points per game average higher against the sides around us than rely on beating Man City, Chelsea & Liverpool at home again.

So Saints targets for the season are clear, keep this good start going, in the long run its a good foundation and as we know in football confidence is everything, get the points on the scoreboard and then we can look to the next level, keep taking small steps throughout the season and they add up to big ones, three small steps in the grand scale of things will always be more valuable than one big one.

Saints can have a great season, but the message is lets hammer home this opening day win in fine fashion and leave a few clubs paying catch up on us this season, instead of how it has usually been with Saints in virtually every season of the 40 odd that I have watched and that is us chasing the rest every year.

Photo: Action Images

brady100 added 09:36 - Aug 21 Good article, very promising for Saints, however lets not get too far ahead of ourselves...top 10 should be our aim (7th/8th at VERY best). But lets not forget we have a long way to go, whilst West Brom was an example of a solid away performance I still feel we need to learn how to convert possession into clear goal scoring chances and prove over the first 10 games we are up to it defensively. Lets win our games early and go from there, cant wait until Saturday!!!!

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SaintNick added 10:09 - Aug 21 If you take 1.5 points against bottom 14 per game that's 39 over a season and then average say .75 a game against top six that's another 9 that would give us 48 which should be good enough for 10th. After 10 games by my formula we should be on 10.5 points that's our bench mark
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vectis added 10:39 - Aug 21 Actually Nick, not saying your wrong about Saints here in what is a pretty good article but have to say that time and time again its those who set unrealistic goals and never believe they will fail because they have total confidence in their abilities and do not succumb to sentiment who frequently become the most successful. Just sayin. oh and btw, Mayuka was a sound investment. 3.5mil is peanuts in todays football. I personally believe he will be worth 3 times that at least in a couple of years. Maybe not for us unfortunately. Oh well... And Osvaldo is NOT too similar to,Rickie to play alongside him. Just wait and see. Not saying he won't replace Rickie. I am sure he will many times. But they certainly can play together quite comfortably. And as for not spending 15mil on a player just to leave him on the bench - we paid 12mil for Gaston and he spends most of the time on the bench. New world at Saints mate.

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SaintNick added 10:46 - Aug 21 Fair points and whose to say who is right, however in todays football having confidence in being able to do it is all about having the right players who are of a certain standard, just look at what Man City have won despite all their millions its very little. I will have a £5 charity bet with you that Mayuka is sold for less than £3.5 million and therefore not a sound investment and I will double that up on saying he will never ever be sold for £10.5 million within the next 2 years. With regard to Gaston, these days he spends most of his time on the bench, but that wasn't true last season, he started 20 out of 32 games he was available for (It actually might have been less, he was injured for a couple)

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slynch added 10:49 - Aug 21 1.5ppg is not an aim or a target it's an expectation. And a rather lowly one too. If it was a target then if you found you were getting 2ppg you'd throw a few games to get back on target. The aim for each player is play as best as he can and the aim of the manager is to organize them into the best team he can and the aim of the director is to provide resources to provide the best players etc and the aim is the most number of points possible from each game and earn the most money as possible for the owner. Waddya fink of the new guy, Nick?

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vectis added 10:56 - Aug 21 Nick, well, maybe sound investment was the wrong phrase cos I concede we could well sell him for less than we paid for him. I still believe it was a sensible gamble tho...he is one of the most highly rated young players in the world and has plenty of time to improve. And 3.5mil is not much of a loss considering the sort of money we are throwing around now. Personally I am more worried about Osvaldo. Now that would be a lot to throw away if he doesn't score goals. But then...i suppose that's the gamble isn't it? We could spend 15mil on 15 lower league strikers hoping to find the next Rickie Lambert and still lose a boat load of cash. fair point about City.

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brady100 added 11:38 - Aug 21 I have often defended Mayuka pureley because I think we just havent seen enough of him...but to say he is one of the most highly rated young players in the world... very rash indeed!!
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SaintNick added 11:59 - Aug 21 Slynch, your right amongst some saints fans 1.5 average per game over 38 games is an expectation, but is it realistic, ? Yes its achievable but if you look at last season only 7 teams managed the 57 points that would entail and the 8th placed team was 8 away from it, so is it realistic, I would say not, words about belief etc are often used, but we aren't the only team using them and that's the problem. On the face of it the new guy looks good, but lets see him play first, 2 months ago none of us had heard of him

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slynch added 12:26 - Aug 21 Cheers Nick, re Man City, their last league positions were; 5th, 3rd, 1st, 2nd. You can't get much better than that, bearing in mind you can't buy all the good players cos you're only allowed 11 per team. (And Saints are buying all the other ones, Ha!)
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vectis added 15:24 - Aug 21 Brady...at the time Mayuka joined us he was considered a massive coup by a number of football jurno's outside the UK. Like Wanayama and Ramirez many had him down for moves to big clubs after his performances in the African Nations Cup. Half of them seemed insulted that he went to us actually lol. As it happens its not yet worked out. And everything has gone quiet about him. Who knows why. Maybe he simply isn't good enough. Maybe he can't settle in England. Maybe he can't adjust to the English game. He wouldn't be the first. But I do think that one day he will go somewhere and be a big success. Not a,world beater I suppose, but he won't be screwing lids on jars of beetroot either. ;-)

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vectis added 15:27 - Aug 21 ER...i mean his joining us was considered a massive coup not that he was considered one...cos that would be weird. And,weird is just not cricket. Or, you know, football
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