Football is and always has been a case of ifs and buts for all clubs and players even, but this season two kicks of the ball at Wigan are really impacting on Saints.

Of course we cant go back and change what has happened in the past, but as we go into this weekend looking over our shoulder at Wigan Athletic and knowing that defeat to Chelsea could put the Lancashire club only one poit behind us with a game in hand should they win thus plunging us back into relegation trouble, the closeness of the fight down at the bottom is highlighted by the fact that if two kicks of the ball hadnt gone in at Wigan both in injury time of seperate games then things could be a lot lot different and Saints could now be all but safe.

The first was of course the injury time equaliser by Wigan against ourselves just under two months ago, if we had defended that ball and not left their man with a simple equaliser then the league table would still show Wigan third from bottom, but with a point taken off leaving them on 26 and two added to our total we would now be sitting in 13th place on 33 points, a seven point gap at this stage would be a significant total even with a game in hand, although with that game in hand for Wigan being at Man City on April 17th its debatable of how much value it will hopefully be. 

But our situation could be much much better, Wigan won their last game against Newcastle 2-1 with a highly controversial last minute winner when a blatant handball was missed by the referee and Wigan took all three points, if the ref had noticed that infringement then Wigan would be another two points down and you would have to say that with them on 24 points and us on 33 it would have been all but game over and we would be looking now for a solitary victory perhaps added to a couple of draws to see us safe.

Sadly both of those two kicks did result in goals so our league position looks a lot more precarious, and the fact is we could well be only a point off the final relegation place come Saturday evening and really worrying about that game in hand.

For their part Wigan probably lost the sympathy of the country for that last minute winner against the Geordies, if they stay up by two points or less, then it will certainly being a case of cheats prospering.  

Photo: Action Images

saint22 added 09:50 - Mar 28 I have posted this numerous times. Defeats to Wigan and QPR could be the difference between us staying up or not. Had we not lost those two, or even won them we could well be safe already
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SaintNick added 10:00 - Mar 28 its not just the defeats but in this case how two kicks of a football could be the difference
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Scummer added 11:28 - Mar 28 Reading this did nothing for my blood pressure. http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/fourfourtwoview/archive/2013/03/28/premier-league-p Here's hoping that the next few weeks open the current gap up to show a little bit of daylight. I would love it if the results on the last weekend or two became largely irrelevant and we coasted to a pleasant anticlimax at the end of the season.

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SaintNick added 11:49 - Mar 28 We need to keep calm and carry on as they say, I think two wins will see us home
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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 16:28 - Mar 28 Saints will stay up and we'll finish about 12th in the end. I expect us to get 3 or 4 more wins this season, and a few more draws. Rafa will rotate no doubt on Saturday cos he'll want to beat United on Monday. Hopefully Torres will start up front. Ba's scored 3 goals in his last 2 games against us so lets hope he's rested. If Mata or Hazard don't start then that will help too! I think Saints have got a chance against Chelsea with the Liverpool performance in mind and the changes that Rafa will make could disrupt Chelsea, especially with us hassling them from the off. QPR and Reading are dead certs to go down. I think Sunderland and Stoke are going to really struggle for points in the run in and they'll be right in the thick of it going into the final couple of weeks.

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saintmark1976 added 16:51 - Mar 28 A good post Nick. However, at this stage of the season It really is a bit like saying "that if your Aunt had had "ba//s she would have been your Uncle" All that matters now is what happens in the future. Out of interest are you confident that 38 points will see us avoid the drop? Did not West Ham go down whilst in the early 40s a few seasons back? In regard to Nigel Adkins I see this as a clever move on the part of Reading. They probably will go down but they will then have a manager with a proven championship track record to get them back again quickly.There are not a lot of those about!

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