Whilst ultimately Saints are in the position they are in due to a number of factors, it cannot be denied that they also seem to have an extraordinary amount of bad luck this season.

I am not one to have post mortem's before the actual death, there are many factors as to why Saints have found themselves in the position they are in, some more relevant than others, but ultimately the major factor has been the managerial situation at the club that saw Mauricio Pellegrino left in situ for at least two months longer than he really should have been and perhaps nearer three.

There are some that would claim that the whole club is in complete crisis, but that would be unfair, as they say one bad apple does not mean the whole barrel is rotten.

But it is more than just poor management, poor play or a lack of commitment from some players, there has been an air of bad luck surrounding Saints that has seen several big decisions go against us, but few seem to go for us.

Perhaps the biggest was away to Watford when we were blatantly cheated out of three points by the ball being punched into our goal in injury time, just those two points added now would make our task a lot easier, not to mention that a win then might have kick started a revival.

It is still continuing now with TV showing that Saints were denied a perfectly good goal by a poor refereeing decision at Wembley on Sunday.

Injuries have not helped either, losing Charlie Austin for over three months was another slice of bad luck.

Then there are the late last minute goals that have cost us dearly.

But ultimately we cannot put all the blame on bad luck, ultimately in many respects you make your own luck but, that certainly wasn't the case at Watford or Wembley, there was nothing we could have done different to change that, to be blunt we haven't seemed to have much good luck go our way

So we could do with a change in our fortunes in the last four games, we have had a whole season without much so perhaps we could squeeze 8 months good luck into these last desperate do or die games.

Sometimes seasons change with a slice of good luck, perhaps we will get it on Saturday against Bournemouth, perhaps a refereeing decision going for us for once, perhaps a goal being wrongly disallowed for the opposition or perhaps a lucky late winner.

I don't care when or what it is, just know our luck has been awful and we need it to change.

So let's get behind the side in the final four games, lets throw salt over our shoulders, let lots of black cats cross our paths, step in as much dog pooh as we can and do everything to change our fortunes whilst we still have the opportunity, as I said the corpse is not yet dead and buried, we can have the post mortem when it is, until then lets keep trying to revive it !

Photo: Action Images

DorsetIan added 14:30 - Apr 27 Big day for Hughes - luck or no luck. Does he have the nowse to put out a Saints team that can deliver a performance that will get the fans on side, and deliver a win?... or doesn't he?...
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saintpp added 14:37 - Apr 27 Apart from the late penalty at home to west ham i cant remember us getting any luck at all,none that changed a game. I m never one to moan about luck as i beleive it evens itself out.top 6 clubs excluded,so hopefully on that basis it will come in the last 4 games. We will need it no matter how well you play if it goes against you that you will fail. But i really cant recall a worse season for decisons and just plain bad luck.

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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 15:43 - Apr 27 Lol! The league table doesn't lie. We are there because we have been one of the worst teams in the league this season. Luck doesn't have much to do with it. A terrible manager kept in the job 3 months too long and a bunch of average players is why we are where we are.
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helpineedsomebody added 16:36 - Apr 27 it started 3 years ago when tubby took control& let krueger/reed into the sweetshop
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saintmark1976 added 17:03 - Apr 27 "There are some that would claim that the whole club is in complete crisis, but that would be unfair". Nick, perhaps you would like to justify that comment a little further please? Surely being four points from relegation safety with four games left and having won five league games all season qualifies as a complete crisis or am I missing something?
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petesmaterob added 18:21 - Apr 27 I agree that the club now needs to have a serious review of what has gone wrong this season. First I should clarify that I am not in the anti- Les Reed camp. I think he and his team have done a great job up to the start of last year but the wheels have come off and it may be time for a change. The last two managerial selections have been a disaster and recent signings have not come up to the standard of previous years. We also seem to have no top quality young players on the conveyor belt with the under 23s and 18s having poor years. One of my big gripes (so forgive me for repeating myself) is that I think we are trying to be too clever with our signings and are ignoring the domestic market. When the search for a new manager starts I would like us to look for our equivalent of Eddie Howe or Shaun Dyche. Young, English, track record in the lower leagues and able to demonstrate that he will play attractive pressing football and develop players. If we get the right person we must then allow time for that to happen and stop this damaging merry go round. Hopefully Pete will agree.

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underweststand added 19:42 - Apr 27 All this talk of luck makes we think we've hardly had any of "the good sort" anyway. Where could it have been better?. To start with how about having the 7th most shots in the Prem, but converting less than 10% of them....or hitting the woodwork...16 times at the last count I read. Shall we blamed our strikers?...(not until after game 38 please), but who else is there? .or the points we were robbed of. Like Man City getting a winner in the 7th min. of added time ...and no-one could see why .or that nameless Watford striker who "did a Maradona " in added time and robbed us of 2 points......or a similar situation when we were leading at Burnley until quite late on. There's 4 points we'll never see again., and I'm sick to death of those people who always say.."it evens itself out over a season .." so hear this ..it doesn't ! There are a few more penalty situations that VAR might have given us the advantage..but as we saw last weekend, even that system isn't used unless the ref. has his back turned. Everyone has a bad season once in a while, but it doesn't always mean they're relegated. Unfortunately, we've had all our bad luck in one go....we've seen "The Great Escape " once before ..so we can only hope that we might get some good luck and see history repeat itself. What are the odds we'd get for 4 straight wins ..or beating Citeh at home ? One way or another we may still end up with yet another new manager next season... COYR!

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skiptonsaint added 20:18 - Apr 27 I should not laugh at helpinneedsomebody comment but it might be the best on this forum all year As for luck , yes unlucky but not in injuries, others have had it worse. We should never have been so reliant on Austin with his record
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SanMarco added 00:56 - Apr 28 We haven't been lucky this season but it probably has cost us, say, 3 pts. So we would hardly be safe in mid-table if we'd had more luck. Not being able to prevent headed goals from simple crosses aint bad luck; nor is selling your best centre-backs and relying on inadequate ones; nor is not addressing obvious problems in the attacking areas and nor is buying sh1te players to replace good ones.

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DPeps added 06:48 - Apr 28 I don't agree that we've been unlucky with injuries. Palace have had it far worse, for instance. Yes, Austin has been out for part of the season but everyone knows that he has problems so it's a risk you take by relying on him.
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aceofthebase added 07:53 - Apr 28 Centre backs having to cover for a useless right back when crosses come over has cost us at least six points, that's not bad luck.
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LordDZLucan added 09:24 - Apr 28 A lot of our 'bad luck' happens from the 70th minute onwards when we start sitting back and letting teams come onto us. I think the reason for this is that our fitness levels are not as high as those of other teams. Now that might be down to our training methods or it might be because we've got a number of players who are physically incapable of reaching higher levels. I have a feeling its the latter.

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SaintPaulVW added 10:13 - Apr 28 Whatever happens luckily the black box bollox is now over. Team needs a fixed long term spine not a rotating cast of short term players promised a stepping stone to bigger clubs.
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Newdawn2014 added 10:32 - Apr 28 for what its worth , not replacing a poor manager sooner and complacency from the players , Charlie said as much, as in we have run out of matches to win. And of course no goals . So all the platitudes trotted out by various players needs to come to fruition today please. COYR
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