Saints travel to Reading to try and preserve their lead at the top.

Saints travel to Reading and for once its hard to predict the starting line up.

First question on everyone's lips will be if Adam lallana will be fit to play, early indications are that he will be, but given the performance put in by the midfield on Tuesday and especially by Richard Chaplow in Lallana's usual left sided position it could be that Nigel Adkins opts not to start Lallana rather than risk him.

Another big decision in the centre of the park is whether to restore Jack Cork, on Tuesday Cork was strangely on the bench, strange because having been one of our best players in previous matches you could only assume that he had a knock of some sort.

Otherwise it will probably be more of the same with the big decision, whom to leave off the bench if Lallana does return.

For their part three of Reading's back four have connections to Saints, Alex pearce spent a succesful loan spell here in 2008/09, Joseph Mills of course only left St Mary's a couple of months ago and Kaspar Gorkss will surely be fired up after his alledged snub by Saints at the last minute after terms had been agreed.

One "ExSaint" on Readings books who wont be featuring is Michail Antonio, last season he came off the bench 20 times in the league but only made 2 starts scoring 1 goal in the process and he has been loaned out to Colchester where he seems to be doing quite well playing 12 times and scoring 3 goals.

Nicholas Bignall who had a short spell with us last season is another surplus to requirements and is currently on loan at Exeter City. 

This is a chance to take a big step for Saints, it has often been mentioned on message boards that Saints were only on the top because thir rivals were slipping up and whilst there is an element of truth in this, the fact is that we are five points clear and we have a great chance to start pressing this advantage home whilst the rest of the promotion hopefuls are in disaray.

Our away form has been poor this season, the first two games yielded maximum points and since then the following four have only seen a return of 2, given that we need to be looking at two points a game we have been held up by our home form, a win tommorrow would get us virtually back on track, but to be blunt a draw would leave us having only got 3points from the last 5 away games and frankly thats not good enough for a team looking for promotion.

We should havethe confidence now to go and take thegame to Reading and win, as is well known I was always quite a fan of Joseph Mills, but the fact is last season he was effectively considered our third choice left back and that got worse with Ben Reeves seemingly leapfrogging him and the arrival of Danny Fox at St Mary's the week before he left for the Madejski. This being the case then we should be looking to crush Reading.

Its time Saints put in another big shift on the road and Reading would be just the place to do it and line ourselves up nicely for the visit of Middlesbrough.       

Photo: Action Images

Clawsfour added 16:15 - Oct 21 A few comments on your statistics. Why do we need to "be looking at 2 points a game"? If you take a realistic view of how many points the third placed team is likely to achieve (and that is what is important, not the historic record of second placed teams) then we currently need 1.76 points per game for automatic promotion. And that means from every six games: win three, draw two and lose one. That would even give us a couple of points comfort zone. If you always take the next game as the last game in a set of six then we need to draw against Reading to remain on schedule for automatic promotion (the previous five games were 2 wins, 2 draws and a single loss). A win would put us ahead of target and even losing puts us just one point behind. So, your analysis that a win would put us "virtually back on track" is not only unduly pessimistic but also, frankly, wrong. I know there are lies, damn lies etc., but you are definitely stretching a point today. And for no apparent reason. As far as others saying we are only on top because others are slipping up - that is also patent nonsense (by them rather than you). If we continue with our current points average we will end up with 100 points, and be run-away leaders. Clearly no-one is expecting that, but it does give the lie to the suggestion that we aren't top on merit. I only offer these observations because after 54 years of supporting the Saints I get a tad irritated by the casual use of ill-informed statistics. When you have seen as much rubbish as I have have played by the Saints over the years, then you can easily tell when things are getting better - and that they are at the moment. And the statistics say so too if you read them properly.

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Clawsfour added 16:26 - Oct 21 And having carefully constructed my argument i see I have been hoist by my own petard. The last five five games were correctly given as 2W, 2D, 1L so we do need to win to be ahead of the game (although a win tomorrow would mean we need only draw against Middlesbrough). I put it down to age.
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SaintNick added 16:28 - Oct 21 we need to average 2 poits per game if we want automatic promotion. At this stage of the season its hard to predict an exact figure but two pointsis generally accepted, to ensure that you finish above third, Nigel Adkins said so himself a few weeks back With regard to back on track im referring to specifically to away games as i thought i had made clear Your right about the points average if we keep on going as we are and we will be run away leaders, however our away form is of concern, if we continue our current form we will get 69 points from home games and 30 from away games, however if we lose tommorow that starts to bring down the total, sit back and quote whatever statistics you want, but the away form is on a downward slump at present and needs to be addressed.

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eusebio added 16:31 - Oct 21 "we need to average 2 poits per game if we want automatic promotion." Is that a new FL rule
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SaintNick added 16:40 - Oct 21 yep
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eusebio added 16:42 - Oct 21 Damn the FL ! 100 points has a nice ring to it.
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yateleysaint added 17:20 - Oct 21 I'll settle for nothing less.
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bstokesaint added 08:34 - Oct 22 2 points a game is the benchmark for any team in any league for promotion every season. We're above that target at the moment and with some of the fixtures below us we have the chance to extend that lead. We're due a good result on the road. 100 points has an excellent ring to it..
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