Its been almost three months to the day since we drew with Stoke City on the last day of the season, but the long wait is almost over.

Only a day to go before the start of the Premier League season, when I was a boy we used to entertain hopes that this would be our year, that perhaps a miracle would happen and we would win the league, but even if that was a little far fetched there was still a real chance of a top five finish and getting into Europe back in the 70'80's, of course that has now all changed and most fans of club's in the Premier league set their sights more realistically, for the newly promoted clubs all they will hope for is 4th from bottom and the chance to play a second season and build, for the next 10 clubs up its fairly straight forward, hope not to get dragged into a relegation battle and perhaps harbour hopes of a decent spell and a top 10 finish although that's not as easy as it sounds and as last season showed it could go either way, to emphasise that fact Saturday's opponents West Brom would be well chuffed with their 8th spot, however they were 12 points off of Liverpool in 7th and only 10 off of Sunderland who finished 4th from bottom and 13 from relegated Wigan, in essence they were almost as near to relegation as they were to 7th which in truth would have been no better than 8th other than the money, if they harboured hopes of qualifying for Europe then Spurs in 5th were 23 points ahead of them.

This perhaps emphasises that the Premier league is now more than ever a league of have and have not's, some would say its three leagues within 1 and there is a case for that.

That being the case then Saints fans will be in the majority on what they can hope for out of this season, being realistic those 10 or 11 middle ground clubs can only hope for a high mid table position of 8th, perhaps 7th this year as Everton may not be as strong without Moyes, along with not being dragged into a relegation battle, the only real chance of glory lies in the cups and as was proved last year, the lure of the Champions league has a bit more preference for those top 6 clubs now, so perhaps the other teams in the Premier should realise that glory is still out there to be had and after all that's what we watch football for or at least I do, not to make up the numbers but to compete, we cannot compete with the top six in the Premier League at least not at this moment in time so lets look at where we can .

Rickie Lambert's appearance and goal for England raised Southampton Football Club's profile more than the entire of last season's relegation battle did, it hinted that we have something in our squad, we need to look at this and how we can take the next step, being blunt when we say we are looking to compete for Europe other teams fans will at best conceal a smirk and at worst laugh openly, so what is realistic ?

For me there should be two objects in the League, firstly not get dragged into a relegation battle, secondly to consolidate and look for a top ten position, if we do that then we truly will have stepped up to the next level, secondly we should want to progress in both cup's, the Carling Cup offers an excellent opportunity to get Saints name on everyone's lips, if there was one team last season we should look to emulate in terms of what they did its Swansea, ask their fans if they would have traded places from 9th to Spurs 5th but not win the Carling Cup, Im sure you know what the answer will be, an FA Cup win would be better, but lets be blunt, either will do.

So that's my wish for the season, aiming for a top ten finish, but challenge for the cups, that will make people sit up and notice, it will be far easier to convince those big name marquee signings that we seem to cherish to sign if we have a trophy to our name or can even point to a semi final appearance.

On Wednesday nigh an emotional Rickie Lambert told the World that scoring the winning goal for England at Wembley was something he had dreamed about for 31 years, ask him what else he dreamed about and Im sure that the words "winner in cup finals" will feature highly, back in the 80's Im sure that Rickie wouldn't have headed home between the jumpers on Fazackerley rec and reeled round shouting "and Lambert scores the goal against Stoke that wins Saints an extra £1.5 million" !

No Rickie's next dream will be that he scores another Wembley goal, perhaps his fairytale can continue and this time its a Saints shirt he is wearing.

Photo: Action Images

ItchenNorth added 11:35 - Aug 16 More full stops in your paragraphs would be a start; you’re tiring me out ! Apart from that; a top striker and wide man in the transfer window would help achieve an 8th – 12th place finish. This would be progression.
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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 11:35 - Aug 16 We should be able to get a top half finish. We’re much better than we were a year ago and we’ll definitely have more than 4 points after 10 games this season!! Players like Schneiderlin, Clyne, Lambert, Boruc, Shaw, Rodriguez, Puncheon (as an impact sub), Davis and Cork have established themselves as good Premiership players and Wanyama, Lovren, JWP, Lallana and Ramirez should be able to do the same this season. Maybe even a couple of others like Mayuka, Chambers or Yoshida could prove themselves to be good enough as well. As long as we score the goals in the games we dominate then we should have a good season and be pushing for top 8. If we find ourselves bossing teams but not scoring then we’ll struggle to get out of mid-table mediocrity. We should be able to control possession in a lot of games, but we’ve got to turn possession into goals. Last season we were quite lucky with injuries if my memory serves correctly. Cork missed the start of the season and Shaw got injured a couple of times but apart from that our key players were always involved and our squad never really got stretched. This season we might not be so lucky and we’ve only got a small squad with little cover in places. I still think a couple of additions are needed, and I just hope the club don’t panic buy again.

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SaintNick added 12:01 - Aug 16 I would agree we are much better than a year ago, however first six games last season saw 3 points, last six games saw only 4 so we finished almost as badly as we started, ok I would take the point about quality of opposition, but then again given that, we should have got more than 4 out of the last six
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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 13:04 - Aug 16 Yeah our last six games were very poor because the goals dried up. We only scored 4 in those 6. With Lambert turning into more of a provider under Poche we'll need the likes of J-Rod, Lallana and Ramirez to score more regularly. I can't see us signing Osvaldo by the way. He's just not interested. He prob wants to continue playing in the Champions League. He’d be a great signing, almost Batistuta like with his powerful finishing, but Saints will be better off pursuing someone else now. Hopefully they’ll have another target immediately lined up.

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abingdonsaint added 19:59 - Aug 16 There is a tendency in football to judge everything in terms of results only, and not in performances, as though the two are completely unrelated! I agree with Reedy, our challenge will be turning possession into goals, as although in points terms last seasons finish was as bad as our start, we had far more control of the games at the end, and some of those results could easily have gone our way on another day. Much as I was a fan of Nigel, in performance terms I have to say we have been far better under Poch regardless of total points, and ultimately if you play well enough often enough, results will come. Anyway....looking forward to The Hawthorns tomorrow.....COYR!!

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Waylander added 22:42 - Aug 16 I would settle for not having to hold my breath during the last month of the season. We played some excellent football in some matches (home to Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea) but we have to beat the sides that will be around us (WBA, Sunderland, Stoke). It concerns me that we don't have cover up front. If Rickie gets injured we'll look lightweight, we were fortunate that he was available for pretty much every game last season - we can't rely on that. .

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