They say that you shouldn't look at a league table till 10 games have been played, well after Saints visit to Stoke that magic figure will have been reached.
The first ten games of any season can throw up a few freak results, but usually by the time that tenth game has been reached the abnormalities have been ironed out and the table is starting to take shape, that's not always the case though, back in 2010 Blackpool sat in 9th place with 13 points out of the opening 10 games, they had every right to feel they had had a great start and could survive the season, yet they were still relegated, which just emphasises how tough this division actually is and taking your foot off the gas can drop you more than a few places if you are not careful.
After eight games Saints are sitting pretty, 15 points cannot be argued with, at times Saints haven't played well and have never truly got going, but they have fashioned themselves into a tough side to beat and fully deserve to be where they are now, however its perhaps the next two games that are going to start to determine whether our season will be one where we will be considered this seasons surprise package, or whether we will drop back into the melee of the mid table.
Fulham at St Mary's followed by Stoke City at the Brittannia are two games that by the end of them could see us still up and around the top four, or dropping back to somewhere between 10th - 14th, Fulham are an example of just how a couple of games can change your season, two games ago they sat in the bottom 3 with Martin Jol under pressure, back to back wins have catapulted them up to 14th and if they won at St Mary's on Saturday they would be just two points behind us, a stark warning of how nothing should be taken for granted in this division and how tightly packed it often is.
Saints have shown that they can live with most teams in the division, however whilst our defensive qualities are not in question, our attacking ones are, and the ability to kill off the so called lesser teams is what ultimately will either make us or break us, we are suited to defending deep and taking chances from dead ball situations, we are not so comfortable when we have to take the game to our opponents, hence the fact that Sunderland got their only point to date at St Mary's and it was within seconds of being three, Norwich are in the bottom three and would be well adrift of safety if they hadn't beaten us, likewise West Ham their point at our place is all that is keeping them from being level with the third bottom club on points. Crystal Palace were only beaten by a quick fire couple of goals in a two minute spell.
So our next two games are watersheds in the season, we need to prove that we can despatch the bottom half sides as well as the top half, it seems a strange thing to say, but the fact is we are more comfortable against teams that come at us, than those that don't have our quality so therefore sit back and park the bus, one drawback of being a side seen as being a contender for thetop six is that when we play at home, more sides will park the bus than would be the norm if we were seen as cannon fodder as we were in the early part of last season.
So perhaps our season will be defined not by our ability to compete with the top sides, but whether we can put away those at the bottom of the table, on reflection this was the case after Mauricio Pochettino's arrival last season, great victories over Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea ultimately kept us up, whilst we struggled against the likes of Wigan, Newcastle and QPR.
So these next two games take on great importance to us, if we win them it not only means that we will be there or thereabouts in the top six, but we will have demonstrated our ability to despatch the bottom half teams, conversely if we fail against Fulham and Stoke then our profile amongst other teams will change and people will talk of us as having had our 5 minutes in the top six and now we are back where we belong, so these games are crucial in that respect as well.
Football is all about perception, look at Manchester united, for year a trip to Old Trafford was seen as just turning up to get beat, many teams were beaten before they started, now with Ferguson gone, the perception has changed and teams are not afraid any more, we have to make sure that the perception of us come 5.pm on Saturday 2nd November is still the same as it is today, that of a team with ambition in the ascendancy.
Of course these are two very winnable games and if we do so then we will have made a big statement of intent, I would also say that we would almost certainly be in the top 4 and that would be undeniably an achievement that no one could say was a flash in the pan given the number of games gone, ultimately a top four finish may well not be in our grasp, but we have to start making other sides perceive that we are a side to be reckoned with.