 Thursday, 4th Aug 2011 09:33 What sort of expectations can Saints fans expect this season. Perhaps the biggest surprise for supporters as we approach 48 hours to go till the big kick off is how little transfer activity there has been either in or out,of course a footballclub will always put the spin on things that it wants its fans to hear and the big question is whether this is actually the truth or spin. Certainly the club has been trying to sign both a central defender and another forward if reports are to be beleived and many took this to be a sign of the clubs ambition, but a month or so on, with no players in these positions signed its difficult to work out just why a player in these positions hasnt been signed. In the case of a forward, it could be said that with the good form of David Connolly, Nigel Adkins feels that he has enough options up front already, that could be the case, Lambert, Barnard, Connolly, Guly, Forte & the promising Doble is more firepower than most clubs in this division, the only real worry being that Connolly apart most are untested at this level. At the back its a different matter though and it has to be a worry that no one has been signed yet, its not a disaster, certainly playing either Jaidi or Martin alongside Fonte would not be the worst pairing in the division, however when you are trying to bring in a player and failing it does not look good. But although some might say that Saints should have done more in this window, I would say that in the main we have a big and strong squad more than capable of surviving in this division, yes it is still probably 2 or 3 short of being genuine promotion contenders but it should be comfortably mid table. But the difference between pushing for promotion and mid table comes down to two things, firstly its about the manager, Paul Lambert took an unfancied Norwich squad to automatic promotion, it could be said his side is no better than Saints, that being the case the difference was the manager, he not only got the team playing good football and wining games, but he saw where the gaps needed plugging and plugged them, that could well be a similar situation at St Mary's, the squad is there, its now about how well the manager does his job. Plugging those gaps is the key, of course some will point to statitistics and say how fruga the defence was, but it wll be different this year, it wont be the likes of Walsall coming like lambs to the slaughter at St Mary's every week, it will be teams more than capable of getting a point, whilst we didnt concede many last year, those goals we did concede where too often down to individual error or lack of concentration, indeed Adkins hinted himself at Yeovil he wasnt happy with our defending. Saints odds for winning the division havent changed much over the summer, this morning we stand at between 14-20/1 to win the division which is around fifth favourites, although our odds havent changed , it seems some of our rivals have lengthened in that we were about 8th a few weeks ago. Its a similar story in the odds to get promoted, the best price is 11/2 which is 7th, again around the same as we have been since the book opened. Favourites for automatic promotion will of course be Leicester City who have and are spending big to buy their way into the Premier league, right alongside them are West Ham who seem to be adopting a sh*t or bust approach and look likely to be either in the premier or administration this time next year, its hard to see past those two for the top two spots. Next up are Birmingham, but given their current off field predicament its hard to judge whether they will be genuine challengers, behind them come Nottingham Forest, & I think Forest could be a good bet for the play offs again this season, Steve McClaren may have a certain reputation and that often leads many to let his England tenure overshadow his domestic record, which is very good, Middlesbrough could be the surprise package in that they are going about things quietely and methodicaly and this could be to their benefit, Reading are still being mentioned, but they are possibly just losing one more player short of a bottom half finish rather than promotion push. After that its down to what could be the surprise packages and that includes us, could Brighton use their new stadium as a springboard, will Blackpool be able to be strong, can Cardiff bounce back with their new manager, all questions about to e answered, but I think the real surprise might be Ipswich Town, the sale of Connor Wickham for big money has enabled them to make several key signings including Lee Bowyer and they might just surprise a few people. Overall Saints should not fear the Championship, but it is a big step up from League One, it seems that Nigel Adkins is firstly going to give the squad that got us promoted the chance to prove themselves and that is fair enough, the key to what happens in the second half of the season though will be all down to Adkins, just how well he identifies the weak areas and how quickly he deals with the problem will be the difference between 10-12th and a possible pay off spot. 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