Saints fans seem to have fallen into two camps recently, those who believe that a top nine finish is doable and those that prefer to remain cautious till we are safe.
Both groups do of course have one thing in common and that is that a Saints win against West Bromwich Albion will bring both of their wishes a little bit nearer, but for the first instance, a win for Saints aligned with a a result or two going our way could see us mathematically safe come 10pm on Monday.
Beating the baggies would take us up to 42 points and you would think it would be to Wigan we would look to first and yes if they were to lose at home to Spurs it would leave a big mountain to climb, but with four games left they could still hit 43 points, unlikely but not impossible.
Simiarly if Aston Villa were to lose to Man Utd this evening and then follow it up by losing at home to Sunderland next Monday night, then although they too could technically get 43 points from their remaining three games, it would actually leave us safe, you see the final day of the season sees Wigan host Villa and that means that at least one of them has to drop two points, that being the case, mathematically we cant plunge into the bottom three.
So Saints are literally a week away from safety, yes I am sure that 42 points would see us safe whatever happened, but personally I like to see it in black and white and be 100% sure.
Its been a long season and im sure that most of us would have taken being safe with just one game to go, let alone three, indeed after our first four games, most would have taken being 1-0 up in the final game of the season going into injury time and needing those three points for survival.
But lets not count our chickens till they hatch and hatch they might do next Monday night.