Saints Need To Turn Solid Start Into A Great Start !
Saints start a two game run that by the end of it will either see what is currently a solid start be a great opening period or perhaps a poor one.
Saints start to this season by their own standards has been brilliant, in the past three decades we have rarely won the opening game so a win and two draws is above our usual par score.
But in the context of the Premier league it would be more solid than spectacular and given the issues surrounding the club over the past few months, most Saints supporters would be happy with the first three games, yes it is disappointing that we haven't scored more goals, but that will come as we assimilate our two main signings in Lemina and Hoedt and hopefully bring Virgil Van Dijk back into the fold.
They are not attacking players but they will bring a stability that will enable us to attack wth the confidence that we can also defend the counter attack so can commit men forward, that is something we did very well under Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman but last season under Claude Puel especially in the second half of the season was not something that you could say.
So we now go into two games that will help define the season if we can take six points from the home game against Watford and then the trip to Crystal Palace then our start will be upgraded from solid to verging on spectacular, 11 points from 5 games would give us a great base to start the season with and would match our record in 2014/15 when after the opening day defeat at Liverpool we then started on a run that gave us terrific momentum and carried us through the first half of the season.
But if we should fail to win either of these games then suddenly that solid start does not look that steady at all, in fact it would leave us looking over our shoulders a little.
If we are to get back into the top 7 and have a shot at qualifying for Europe again then we need to be looking at averaging 1.6 points per game, tis is what Everton achieved last season and we ourselves achieved two years ago, of course this is not an exact science but it is a good barometer to assess where we stand at any given point in the season.
So far we are just slightly ahead of target on 1.66 per game, a couple of good wins would push that ratio up and of course give us some momentum as we go into a run of some much tougher games in October and November.
So Saints fans should be happy with what we have achieved so far especially given the issues we have had, but hopefully they are all now behind us, at least for a few months and we can concentrate on what goes on on the pitch and not off it.
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