If Saints can go to White Hart Lane and beat Tottenham Hotspur, then they could end the season as second only to Leicester in terms of points won since the New Year.

When we welcomed in the New Year back in January, all of the League had played 19 games, Leicester were second with 39 points, Spurs 4th with 35 and Saints a lowly 12th with only 24.

Now with only two games to play Leicester have gained another 38 points to win the league and Spurs 35 to keep them in second place, Saints have in that time gained 33. These teams are by far the three who have gained the most since January 1st.

So if Saints can beat Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday they will leapfrog the North London Soccer Chickens in the unofficial form table for the second half of the season and they could then secure that accolade if they beat Crystal Palace.

It is unlikely that we would overhaul Leicester, but if they lost one and drew one of their last two fixtures then they would finish on 39 points and two wins for us would equal that amount, two defeats for them and we would better it.

Of course that means nothing, but it does emphasise just how good Saints have been in the second half of the season, we have showed just what this squad can achieve and it should give us hope for next season in that if we can keep the bulk of the squad together and improve it with a couple of key signings then we can achieve something great.

These are statistics that should be shown to the likes of Victor Wanyama and Sadio Mane to prove to them that they do not need to join so called bigger clubs to achieve success, that if they stay at Saints they might just achieve more in the short term and that they are both young enough to get big moves later in their careers when they have more experience to be able to cope with the demands of being at places like Old Trafford or the Etihad.

The future at Saints is bright, these stats show just what a great manager Ronald Koeman is and what a good job he has done, we only need one more point to equal last seasons total and I'm sure we can beat it, if we win a trophy next season then Ronald Koeman will join Ted Bates and Lawrie McMenemy as one of the truly great managers of this football club.

Photo: Action Images

A1079 added 12:33 - May 6 It is all if's, but's and maybe's. Leagues are not won, trophy's achieved on playing well for half a season it is about consistency over a whole season. As much as it shows how well we have performed in the 2nd half of the season, it shows how much we under performed in the first half of season. If only we had got our act together, not had tantrums with some of the players and looked like we wanted to do well in a cup, we could have been as much of the story as Leicester or West Ham have been. But as much as I look at how we played against Arsenal, Man C, Liverpool in the league, that is counteracted by games like Bournemouth away, Villa at home etc. All that aside, there has been some good performances of late and it does show what we are capable of when we put our mind to it. Koeman and Saints have had a good season in parts, distinctly average in others and that feeling of what may have been. As for next season - who knows, but the cloud over Koeman's future will have an effect at some point.

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BUCK added 12:34 - May 6 shame we didnt match it in the 1st half of the season
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SaintNick added 13:09 - May 6 I think it shows the progress we are making and also emphasises that we are on a long term strategy not a short one. Yes we could have played better in the first half, but we did not have the luck going with us, had we not had injury issues with key players then it could have been much different
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ThereIn76 added 13:27 - May 6 For the first half of the season we didn't have Fraser in goal, neither Cedric nor Martina had acclimatised to the Premier League which meant Yoshida spent longer in the side than should have been the case (and at right back), the same could be said of Clasie who was unavailable for a while because of injury anyway, Virgil didn't sign until the end of the transfer window when everyone was on a downer because of the Europa League exit and he took a few games to hit form, Romeu started unpromisingly before improving out of all recognition . . . They need to keep the current squad together because it's a squad that really can achieve something with a full pre season all together.

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pintsizedsaint added 16:41 - May 6 As I read this article i thought to myself "I wonder who will be the first to say that it's about the entire season..."!! This season is the mirror image of last season. Injuries and experience in the team played their parts in reverse. Start of last season we lost players but we replaced experience with almost matching experience (Bertrand for Shaw, Alderweireld for Lovren, Tadic for Lalanna, Pelle for Lambert) and we had a limited injury list. Injuries started to creep in and we lost pace. This season we did not replace experience with experience (Classie/Romeu for Morgan, Martina/Soares for Clyne, nobody for Alderweireld to begin with until VVD arrived) and had notable injuries in some key areas (Forster being the biggie). We therefore failed to start of with good pace. A number of these inexperienced players are now bedding in (VVD bedding in faster really helped) and the injury list shortened and stayed low. We then started to pick up pace quite nicely - leading to the Stats Nick puts in his article. Yet somehow we view last season more favorably than this? Perhaps that tells us that first impressions count. Yet both have their fair share of good points and bad. Watching Saints slip down the table last season is just as agonising as watching Saints start slowly. Yet watching Saints start really well last season should be considered just as equally as having a really strong end to a season. Of course, getting both ends of the season right means you 'do a Leicester': 3rd time lucky next year?!

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