Last night's games saw the wheat start to be sorted from the chafe a little bit more and Saints put more ground between us and third place.
Whats becoming clear is West ham arent going to give up their goal of winning the title that easily, but although their win at Middllesbrough keeps them hot on our heels, indeed for just over five minutes or so last night they were technically top of the table, it also saw Boro lose more ground on us.
I said last season and reiterated many times this our first goal is to make sure we make the play off's and we currently have a 13 point gap between us and Brighton in 7th, our second is to finish in the top two and again after last night we are 8 points between us and Cardiff in third and a whopping 10 seperating us and Boro in 4th.
Of course we want to finish top and aiming for it can only aid our quest for points, however our main aim is to keep it a two horse race and not allow anyone else into our little automatic promotion party alongside the Hammers.
But it wont be easy, Leeds and Leicester both stepped up to the plate last night with big wins and they and Leicester particularly will be looking to grab a top two place, Leicester i feel will be the big threat, but they are still 13 points behind us, in simple terms thats five wins whilst we lose five, they will be hoping for a war of attrition and to make that up over the coming months and chase us down in April, a little like we did in League One last year, our job is to keep winning games and keep that gap in place.
But at present Cardiff are our benchmark to keep at bay on 34 points, with 27 games left if they averaged two points per game, that would give them 88 points, so my target of 90 needed is still pretty accurate, that means after last nights win we need another 13 on top of 9 draws and even this allows us a margin of 5 defeats.
To some this sounds quite tight, but if we look at Leicester as our main rivals in the chasing pack, for them to hit 90 points they need to get 61 points, thats already an average of 2.25 points per game, on the same calculations I have just used they need to win 18 draw 7 and lose only 2, that is a very tall order.
This is why as much as we need to keep winning and chalking off those wins, we need to keep an eye over our shoulder and every time one of our rivals fails to win thats two points dropped and their task a little harder.
So although last night didnt help our title winning hopes much, it was a big step towards that coveted second place.