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Saints Slowly Build Up Momentum

In all the pointing and shouting prevalent of late amongst Saints supporters, it has failed to be noticed that we are now six games unbeaten and getting up some momentum.

This piece is not meant to gloss over the fact that there are very definately things wrong at Southampton Football Club at the moment, but it is also to make people consider that if we lose a few football games it does not make the club itself rotten to the core any more than winning them would mean that it is a model for the future of World football.

But as Saints fans seemingly spend their entire days ranting on social media, on the pitch itself momentum has built up to the point where we are now six games unbeaten in total and four in the Premier League.

This is a reasonable run and if we can continue in this vein then pulling clear of trouble should not be a problem, over the past four games in the league we have averaged 1.5 points per game, repeat that over the last 12 games and we will have 44 points more than enough to stay up.

The win at West Brom was the culmination of some good performances that have ultimately had their flaws that have cost us points, we really should have won at Watford, only beaten by a cheat who punched the ball into the net, if that had been spotted then the league table would be a lot different this morning.

We now have some foundations to build on, if the manager has learn't his lessons.

The jury still has to be out on Pellegrino, f only because it has not quite reached a majority verdict yet and new evidence has just emerged, Saturday showed how well the team can play if the squad is used properly, Carrillo adds something to the side and Lemina was immense.

If we have lacked leadership off the pitch we have also lacked it on it and on Saturday we saw two leaders emerge, Lemina and Hoedt, two players who although we paid big money for in the summer, Pellegrino has seen fit to inexplicably drop or leave on the bench on too many occasions.

Pellegrino's fate is in his own hands, he has to show that he does have what it takes, yes there have been issues as in the Van Dijk situation, but they are in the past, perhaps he will not be the man to take us forward long term, but we can hope that he will like Claude Puel last season end up keeping his dignity intact and although not being the manager we hoped for doing us no real harm.

The Liverpool game on Sunday could be a blessing or a curse, undoubtably we will go into it with our heads and confidence high, but it will be a tough game and we have to be prepared to take a step back in order to take a few going forward after next weekend.

After Liverpool we have five very winnable games, the win on Saturday showed we are capable of doing so and although 4 of them are away from home, that is not an issue, in many respects we play better away from home in that we are not under pressure fro our own supporters to attack attack attack !

This little run has built up slowly and under the radar of most, the four league games have also seen not only goals but entertainment, the draw at Watford was a good game to watch as was the home draw with Spurs, yes the Brighton game was not pretty, but then again it was never going to be, as Brighton fans will tell you they don't travel well and rarely cross the half way line away from home.

Those who went to the Hawthorns on Saturday will tell you that this is the reason they go to football, for adrenalin rushes like this, getting behind your team and helping it win games, it wasn't plain sailing at times, but that made it all the more satisfying.

So we have something to build on, all we can do now is get behind the team and hope the manager makes the right selections, as he did on Saturday, what we need to do now is get out of trouble and then we can have the post mortems at the end of the season and discuss whether Les Reed is incompetent or whether Gao is the most evil man since Austin Powers tackled Dr Evil.

I'm sick to death of every little failure on the pitch being added up to make one big failure off it, as I said losing games of football is not good, but it means that your central defender/ goalkeeper/striker etc or manager are not doing their jobs not that the new owner is a tyranical despot who is buying up large tracts of the Isle Of Wight to run his criminal empire from his secret island lair.

Perhaps he might be ! but as of yet we have no evidence of that, the only evidence we have is of a man who has bought a football club and has left the day to day running of it to those who have done just that very well for the past four years.

Many would have preferred he make idle boasts as did Farhad Moshiri when he bought into Everton and made big noises about taking the club into the Champions League etc, without actually mentioning what stands in his way, ie six big clubs with a lot more income, thats panned out well for them so far hasn't it !

So time to give the club a little leeway and get behind it, it is not going to be a quick fix, but if we lose on Sunday it should be taken as just that a defeat on the pitch, the team has given something to it's fans over the past month, it has put together an unbeaten run that has foundations to build on and it is also in the last 16 of the FA Cup with a good chance of progressing to quarter finals.

Negative thoughts need to go out of the window for a few months at least, you never know what might happen.

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