Saints season is not over yet, they need to make sure that neither Newcastle or fast climbing Stoke City overtake them in the final straight, to do that we cannot afford a repeat of last season's ending.

After Saints won at Reading last season to make it three wins in a row and be within sight of the finishing line, they fell off badly failing to win in any of the last six games although 4 draws made sure that although we were looking nervously over our shoulder, we didn't get dragged into the relegation dogfight.

If we are not careful we could repeat last term's poor ending and in doing so could find both Newcastle and Stoke City over taking us in the final straight, of course finishing 10th would not be the end of the World, but 8th looks and sounds much better.

Last season's final six games started with two draws so already this year we are playing catch up in that our run in has commenced with two straight defeats and more worryingly on paper at last, last years final six look a lot easier than this.

But our main priority is to hold our 8th position, Newcastle sit two points behind and we missed a great chance on Saturday to put a gap between them, but sat only three points behind them is the much improved Stoke City and when you look at their final four games Saints need to get a win on the board and fast, Stoke face Cardiff away on Saturday, follow that up with Spurs at home and then have Fulham at home and West Brom away on the final day.

Newcastle are at home to Swansea on Saturday, followed by Arsenal away, Cardiff at home and end with Liverpool away on the final day, their run in is tougher and you can see them getting six points from it but no more.

This being the case then I would guess that to be sure of 8th we need to get four points on the board, it doesn't sound difficult but when you look at our fixtures it suddenly starts to sound daunting.

Aston Villa this weekend will be tough, they suddenly find themselves with a foot in the relegation battle, if they lose to us on Saturday then they could be dragged down, they will be fighting for their lives in this game, we follow that up with Everton at home, the Toffee's are aiming for the Champions League they are methodical that will be tough, Swansea away could represent our best chance of a win in the final four games in that they are a side in freefall and we finish with Manchester United at home, they will be looking to secure sixth place and a place in the Europa League, they will be in no mood to take it easy.

So in this final four, given out poor error strewn showing in the past two games its hard to see us getting the four points that would probably see us limp over the finishing line and secure 8th.

Historically under Mauricio Pochettino it has always been peaks followed by troughs, last season his first six games in charge saw only 5 points on the board, we then followed that up with a four game unbeaten spell taking 10 points and then the final sig games with the aforementioned 4 point haul.

This season has been similar, our opening four games were decidely average, a last minute penalty winner against West Brom disguising how poor we were with the next three games seeing home draws with Sunderland and West Ham and defeat at Norwich.

We then went on a seven game run that yielded 17 points and took us to the cusp of leading the Premier League, but then we fell apart again with the next six games yielding 4 defeats and 2 draws.

The six games over the Xmas and New Year period were a little better with 8 points being an average haul indeed just about the only average spell we have had under Pochettino and then we hit form again with our next 8 yielding 16 points.

So if history repeats itself we are now in yet another downturn run of games and this could cost us dearly, the manager needs to arrest this pattern of form over his 15 months in charge and get us those points to make this if not quite the season we had hoped, one that can be looked back on with pride.

As I said though the worrying trend is that we are a side of boom and bust and that is not good, it also suggests that we rely heavily on playing certain sides at certain times, if we look at how closely packed it is between 8th and even the bottom 4 it perhaps suggests that there is little to choose between most of the sides in the Premier, the difference to being say Stoke in 10th on 43 points and West Brom in 16th is only 10 points, a case of playing two teams at the rifght or wrong time.

This could be illustrated by Fulham a side who looked dead and buried a couple of weeks ago, undoubtably they played us at the wrong time, both fixtures were right in the middle of our two good runs and they lost both, if they had played us in the middle of our bad runs then it could have been different, if they had won both they would now have 36 points we would have 42, that is how quickly this years table can change with a couple of victories in the right places.

Of course you can only play what you have in front of you, but we should remember that next season the fixture list might not be so kind to us as was the case when we started back in the Premier and had a spell from hell in the opening six games.

But the overall message is this, going from boom to bust shows there is something not quite right in a teams set up, players should not go from winning and dominating games to suddenly getting stuffed and being error strewn virtually overnight, of course this is football and not an exact science, but the pattern is clear.

Photo: Action Images

slynch added 10:43 - Apr 15 I think your "boom and bust" comes from having a small squad, as MP has stated. Lose Luvren, Shaw, Lalana and Saints are a championship side. I think there is something to be said from selling your best player and your worst player and buying four decent players and get the consistency that league success requires and ready alternatives from the bench that enables a team to change tactics and attack more of defend a lead as required.

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halftimeorange added 13:13 - Apr 15 We definitely don't have the strength in depth and, unless we see a batch of talented youngsters all coming through at once, we never will because we aren't able to offer good and experienced back-ups the alternative to the League - a European campaign. We might have done had the FA cup been taken seriously.
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cheltenhamsaint added 01:11 - Apr 17 I partly agree with "slynch" in that we are working with a small squad, which is a result of the rapid rise to where we are now and the long contracts we gave the players to do this( I don't necessarily disagree with this past strategy) I think it is difficult to judge the manager's ability fully until this goes its natural course and the squad is of his choosing. Where I disagree is selling you best player to improve the squad overall with more players. Spurs were forced to do this with Bale, They signed six to replace him and have gone backwards. Only one example I admit but one worth mentioning. FA Cup/Europa league - I do believe that all clubs should take each competition seriously, as I believe we do, but cannot fail to smile at the "we could give fringe players a run out in European games but why aren't we at Wembley in the FA Cup/League Cup" paradox.

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