Whether you are at the top or the bottom of the league you are always having to look at what is happening elsewhere and consider what would be the best result for your team.

There are some important games that affect saints league position taking place on Saturday, not least the early kick off that sees Man City take on Spurs in a game that will help determine which position Saints could be occupying after the weekend is over.

If it is a City win then that will mean they will be four points ahead of us and that even if we beat Sunderland we won't be able to overtake them, however in contrast a Spurs win would see us drop a place before we have even kicked off, although even a point in our fixture would be enough to leapfrog back over the North London side.

Some needn't consider what result would be best for Saints, the reality is that probably we are far more likely to be contesting a place with Spurs come the end of the season, that being the case although a draw would be perhaps a result that in the short term would suit Saints in that it would keep Spurs below us and also make it possible to jump over Man City a few hours later, in the long term it would probably be better that Spurs be beaten.

When we take a look at the sides below us it is even more important to get all three points against the Mackems , there are a plethora of sides on 10 points and many of these will fancy their chances of a win over the weekend, not least Liverpool at QPR, West Ham at Burnley, Arsenal at home to Hull and even Villa at Everton, even Swansea V Stoke is important, Swansea win they have 14 points but if Stoke who start the weekend only two places above the relegation zone win, then they will have 11 points.

So as we see its firstly important that we win to make sure that we keep our heads well above a very congested table, but important that certain results perhaps go our way as well, in that chasing pack a few draws would not go down too badly that is for sure.

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darthvader added 14:06 - Oct 14 Be nice if we can get any sort of win and all the others draw .
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WestSussexSaint added 20:12 - Oct 14 As Nigel Adkins used to say all we can do Is control the controlables. Get the 3pts and the rest will take care of itself.
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SanMarco added 00:29 - Oct 15 Isn't it a bit early for all this? As West Sussex says let's just win and then look at the table. The course of the season hasn't emerged fully yet, Everton vs Villa is a great example - I would be wary of hoping for an Everton win to stop Villa because my guess is that after 38 games Everton are more likely to come above us than Villa, so do I therefore want Villa to win? I will go with darthvader and hope for draws all round but if one of those sides drawing pips us for 4th/5th/6th or whatever by one point I will wish they had lost - except of course I won't remember because it was only the 8th game and it will be over 6 months ago...

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