Time To Kick On
Sunday, 13th Mar 2011 21:48

Saints now have the chance to push forward for promotion, they need to take it.

In the space of the last couple of weeks, Saints have gone from looking also rans in the automatic promotion race to a very strong psoition coming u on the rails, four wins out of five games has seen us overhaul Bournemouth with two games in hand and sit just behind our now main rivals Peterborough and Huddersfield again with games in hand.

Whilst it is about winning our own games, we have to be patient and accept that they are going to also win games, however the tide may start to swing in our favour over the next seven days, firstly both of them have tricky away games on Tuesday, Posh go to Sheff Weds whilst Hudderfield travel to Brentford, Peterborough like Bournemouth have based their good form on home wins, away from home they are not so hot and Wednesday are no mugs at home themselves, but the good news is that posh only have four home games left and seven away.

Huddersfield arent bad on the road but no one relishes a trip to Griffin Park and the Bees are on a high as they prepare for a trip to Wembley.

But although the failure of any of them to win on Tuesday will be a bonus, on Saturday Huddersfield will surely beat Swindon at home, Peterborough however face another tricky trip on the monday to MK Dons who again have a great home record and will themselves only have four left after this one and know they need to take maximum points from this one.

But as i say any failure to win will only be a bonus, Saints now have to maintain their good run and keep winning themselves, out of the remaining 12 games I feel that we need to consider 85 points as the target for second, that means winning 7 and drawing 3 out of our last 12 games, which funnily enough comes back again to that two point average that I said we needed back in October.

Although this sounds a big ask at first reading, we do have six home games left and if we can win five of them it will make life easier and dont forget that to get to that 85 point mark Huddersfield will need to win 7 out of their last 10, they are running out of room to manouevre and crucially they have to play Peterborough at home and both Brighton and MK Dons on the road.

Peterborough have a little more space, but again they are needing to win 7 out of 11, the bad news is that their run in is a little bit easier than the rest, but they do have to go to Huddersfield and MK Dons plus Leyton orient who are finding form.

As it stands Huddersfield can get a maximum of 93 points and Peterborough 95, in reality as they have to play one another they both cant get them, so that 85 point mark could come down a little over time and every time they fail to win it makes our task a little easier.

So its all in Saints hands, I feel that we have rarely really gelled so far this season for any period of time, I still think that the manager is struggling to get his team selections right, but the good news is that the players are good enough to win games without this leadership and that as the winning post comes into sight the adrenalin should start to kick in and team spirit emerge.

There are those that say we should look to bring in someone on loan to bolster the final run in, whilst of course a quality signing would not come amiss, the fact is we dont neccesarily need anyone unless they are true quality, up front we have goalscorers Barnard and Lambert are both now scoring at a decent right just at the right time and we have Guly to come back into the side to bolster this, but the midfield is also now regularly chipping in and not just Lallana and Oxo, Hammond is starting to find the net, we have the players, it is no use bringing in a loan signing of a similar quality to N Guessan or even Forte, that will just clog things up.

Every match is crucial to Saints now both for us and our rivals, we now have to focus on that two point average and 85 point targe, if we do then we can get past that post quicker.

Photo: Action Images

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SeafordSaint added 00:13 - Mar 14

Nick,

With our facilities, squad and resources we should be good for automatic promotion. In an ideal world I'd like to see us go up as Champions.

Only recently NA was talking about us actually winning the league but this is probably beyond us now as we have thrown away too many silly points; aka Walsall or Tranmere away. Credit is also due to Brighton & HA who are also on a very good run of results themselves.

I hope that the last week, which has seen us gain three victories, will give the impetus we need to now go on a nice long winning streak. I'd like us to go into each match with the belief that we will win and win well. Also, I'd like us to play with a swagger and in a swashbuckling style so that the opposition are afraid of us even before we get on the pitch.

My real concern in all of this is Peterborough. Ferguson seems to have them playing for fun now and were able to beat Carlisle United 6 - 0 at the weekend. A team we recently struggled to overcome 1 - 0 when they were reduced to 10 men.

At this stage of the season it is now time, in my opinion, for NA and his team to prove that they actually want promotion as much as we - the fans - do.

SfS.