With this weekend's win over West Ham United, Saints have now equalled last season's opening trio of games, but it could be said this years start was tougher.

Last season Saints kicked off their Premier League campaign with a win at West Brom courtesy of a last minute penalty and then followed it up with a 1-1 home draw with Sunderland courtesy of a last minute headed equaliser from Jose Fonte and then lost at Norwich 1-0. So the stats read 3 games played, 4 points gained, 2 goals scored and 2 conceded.

On reflection it wasn't the toughest start, West Brom finished 4th from bottom, Sunderland spent most of the year in the bottom three before a late rally carried them clear and Norwich were relegated.

This years opening games on paper should be tougher, Liverpool away is a trip not many teams will relish & West Ham away has seen heavy defeats in the past two seasons, so to come out with the same points total as last term is an encouraging sign.

But perhaps the most important thing is the manner in which we have achieved those points, last term it took two last minute goals to earn three of those points and without them we could have achieved only one and the tone for the season could have been set far differently than it was.

This year we have earned the points in far more convincing fashion, this is good many predicted free fall for Saints and suggested that we had no squad or team spirit left, of course it was always going to be tough for Ronald Koeman, he needed to re build the squad and the loss of those 5 players cannot be under estimated, but what was underestimated by those who shouted doom and gloom was firstly the quality we still had left and secondly the ability of Ronald Koeman to do the job he was being employed for.

Things still aren't brilliant yet there is a long way to go, but the foundations are there and Koeman whilst changing the style from that of his predecessor has built on the foundations and made some good signings that have improved the squad overall.

Now we find ourselves equalling last season's start so we are not in free fall, we are not in chaos, what we have to do now is like last term use the start as a springboard to make sure the season is all about chasing glory and not fighting relegation.

Even if we had kept everyone it would have been very hard to improve on last seasons 8th, it is fine to talk of Champions league qualification etc, but there is the little matter of the 7 teams that finished above us, all of them have spent heavily to improve their squads, the reality of the Premier League is that the top 7 is pretty much set in stone at the moment, it would be hard for any club to get in there, finishing 8th again would have been the best we could have hoped for, this is not being negative it is being realistic taking into account not only historic data but the fact that so much has been spent by the teams who were above us.

We know now that we are not the relegation certainties that some Saints fans screamed that we would be, we can see that slowly but surely the manager is putting together a decent squad, we all now need to kick in the same direction, last seasons success was achieved on the positive vibe, we need to get that back, the team clearly have it as was shown at West Ham yesterday, now that needs to be replicated among the supporters , if it is then not only can we have a strong league finish but we might just be returning to Wembley and that is the next logical step forward in making this a great and respected club.

Photo: Action Images

SaintGeorge added 11:52 - Aug 31 Last season's trajectory was win-draw lose, this season it's lose-draw-win. Onwards and upwards :o)
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SaintNick added 11:59 - Aug 31 good points
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montecristo added 12:08 - Aug 31 how well we do this season in part depends on who we pick up to the end of the transfer window, if we get Redmond or Capel plus Van Djik we will arguably have a stronger squad than last year.Fingers crossed.
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SanMarco added 16:46 - Aug 31 Yes but... I admire the optimism but it is a bit early for such statistical comparisons. I would certainly be delighted if you do this again after 11 games (6-4-1 and third place) and am pleased that you ignored the doom and gloom of 2 pts down on the results from last year's fixtures against the teams we've played. Yes - I am guardedly optimistic but probably a hostage to fortune to begin these comparisons so early (unless your tongue is ever so slightly in your cheek in which case forgive my pomposity!)

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OldRed added 09:03 - Sep 1 I think we are an unknown quantity to many teams at the moment after getting used to our style last season, other teams started to get the measure of us. Hopefully that won't be the case this season and Koeman can mix things up a bit.
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