Although there is no Premier League game for Saints this weekend I thought I would do a preview anyway.
The only problem with being in the Premier League is the lack of fixtures coming at you week in week out, cossetted Premier players on more money in a week than most of the people who watch them earn in a year complain about the number of matches they have to play, but the truth is that in the case of Saints we played a lot more matches when we were back in League One than most Premier teams and with a smaller squad.
But I digress, what the Premier has meant for Saints is that instead of playing every Saturday we get an awful lot of weekends off, with a couple of empty weekends out due to being out of the cup we will have had an empty weekend without football on six of them, when you consider the season lasts nine months thats a big ratio.
So this weekend its one we can relax in, indeed for the whole weekend, back in the Championship and League One the pressure was only on for one day usually, the Saturday, OK some games were moved to Sunday and even the odd Monday, but in the main most of the games would take place on a Saturday, meaning that once they were out of the way the agony was over, you knew where Saints stood for better or worse, in the Premier with the games being spread between the Saturday and Monday you sweat for three whole days on other teams results, it can consume you.
But this weekend none of that, so on Saturday Saints fans will be able to go off and do somthing else with their friends and family and not have to keep looking at their mobile phones for updates on scores from around the Premier, we can all concentrate on being normal human beings again.
So for me my weekend will be very different, instead of going to bed on Friday night and praying to God to deliver Saints from evil and reminding him that Wigan hasnt even got Christianity properly yet, so therefore why should he want to keep them up and then following that on Saturday morning by either getting on a train to an away game or pooring over the league table and result permutations on the internet, I and thousands like me/us can enjoy a leisurely Saturday morning wiothout stress.
On Saturday afternoon watching Sky Soccer Saturday will be a question of enjoying the light hearted banter for many instead of jumping every time you hear their inimmitable way of letting you know there is a goal somewhere but keeping you on edge till they reveal the location and scorers, none of that for us "Coventry City " supporters this weekend, their one is the only one we will be interested in.
There will be none of that deflated feeling come 5pm and your dog/cat wont need to hide somewhere for an hour, on a financial note as we cant have a storming away win, you wont be tempted to treat the whole family to a slap up takeaway/meal thus relieving your wallet of somewhere North of £30-£40 just because Jay Rodriguez fell over on a piece of grass at Villa Park and Rickie Lambert put away the penalty.
Sunday will be just as leisurely this weekend and for those of us with families and gardens the further good news is its meant to be cold and wet so the significant other half wont be able to try and shame you in going out and cutting the grass, surely life cant get any better as you look at the sports pages impassively, knowing that your not going to scare the kids by shouting abuse at a picture of Harry Redknapp waving at the QPR fans at St Mary's, the only real stress will be if oventry City lose this weekend and if they do who cares anyway.
In fact this is in effect a long weekend, it stretches into Monday, there is no Monday night Premier game so work wont be distracted by discussions on obscure message boards with people you have never met about Readings chances at Sunderland.
So enjoy this weekend, barring some extreme weather in April its going to be the last one we have off for a couple of months, thats two more months of tension, stress and frustration by which at the end of, this club will either be financially secure or we will be worrying about how we are going to pay the bills, the Premier league really does have a lot to answer for, no wonder so many of its clubs prefer a season of mid table mediocrity than actually trying to win a trophy and play in the Europa league