Saints have three games left, but how many points will we need if we are to hold onto the 8th place spot we have been chasing for the last few months.
Saints start their final three games of the season with the visit of Everton who themselves are chasing to equal their best ever Premier league finish, then its a trip to Swansea and finally hosting Manchester United in a game that we will soon find out if their is anything on it for both clubs.
If Saints are to hold on to 8th they need to hold off the challenge of Newcastle United who start this weekend 3 points behind us although due to our goal difference being 20 better than theirs, they will effectively have to get four points more than us out of the final nine if they are to overhaul us.
This makes their task look all the harder, also with faint hopes of catching us are Stoke City who are five behind, again their goal difference is 15 worse than ours so they will effectively need to outpoint us by six, outside bet are Crystal Palace who are seven points behind and 18 goals worse off, that being the case to push Palace out of the equation and guarantee a definite top ten finish we only need a point in our last games assuming that they win all three of theirs.
So lets look at who could realisitically overtake us, Stoke of course are an outside bet, they face Tottenham at home on Saturday meaning that if we lose to Everton they could get within two points of us, they then follow it up with another home games against Fulham and then finish with a trip to West Brom which wont be easy, realistically they are likely to get at the most 7 points out of these games, that being the case we need two points to hold them off.
Newcastle of course are the biggest threat in terms of how close they are, but they have gone to pot in recent weeks, on Monday night they travel to Arsenal, they follow that up with a home game against Cardiff and then travel to Liverpool on the final day, its hard to see them getting anymore than 4 points out of those three at best, meaning that we just need a single point to see them off, reality is that I think they will only get 3 points from beating Cardiff at home and thats by no means certain given that the Bluebirds/Dragons are fightig for their lives.
So the overall picture is that Saints need to do very little to hold on to 8th as long as things go pretty much to form, of course we dont want complacency at this stage, but we have put ourselves in the driving seat, the only problem though is that we have a tough run in that given our current form means that its hard to see us getting many points ourselves.
I think that the Swansea game will be crucial next week, out of the three games it represents our best chance to pick up a win, if we do then that will probably be us home and dry in 8th.