Saints travel to the Madejski Stadium on Saturday knowing that if they can make it three Premier League wins in a row they are almost over the line.
There are those that are talking of tenth place rather than relegation at the moment, but Im a firm believer in setting targets and achieving them before taking on the next one and as it stands at the moment we are nearer that 3rd relegation spot (4 pts) than we are 10th in the table (5pts) and until that changes then our first objective this season will not have been achieved.
A few weeks back with the prospect of Liverpool and Chelsea visiting St Mary's there werent too many who would have predicted two straight home wins, perhaps the fact that even with those six points under our belt we are still only four points from the bottom three emphasises that its tight down the bottom and we are not yet out of the woods, indeed the season we were relegated from the premier last time, at this stage we were out of the bottom four with 27 points from 31 games and confident we would push on to safety, we earned only a further 5 points from those last 7 games and went down, ironically the total we have now, 34, would have kept us up.
So we need to concentrate on getting well clear of the drop zone and then and only then can we look upwards, we have yet to win three in a row this season and now is a great time to do it, we are a team in form and should fear nothing travelling to the bottom club in the division. If we gain those 3 points I feel that we will be on the cusp of safety, I have said all along that 38 points will be the benchmark to be relegated and that our targets for the season should be geared towards that and I still feel that to be the case, that being so a win at Reading will leave us only a point off that and with a reasonable run in we can play the remaining half dozen games without fear.
Fear is what relegates sides, we found that out in 2005 and countless other teams have found it to be true, indeed look at Sunderland, they are now fearful, it has promptted them to sack an experienced manager in Martin O'Neill and appoint one who has limited experience and none at the highest levels as a manager, if the Mackems go down it will be down to fear, the fact they didnt keep their nerve in the final run in and as we also know from the 1990's thats what saves teams who looked doomed and drags those who thought they were safe to a relegation they thought unlikely with a few weeks to go.
The sooner we get that fear out of the way with another win and we can finsih the season with a flourish, we have done 3/4 of the job, now is the time to finish it and be on the verge of the finishing line with half a dozen games to go.
With respect to Reading and of course Nigel Adkins, we should be confident of beating them, we need to show that from the start, there is a lingering feeling amongst some about fate and meeting Nigel in his new job now, I dont buy into that, Nigel Adkins has nothing to prove as a manager, but he cant change a poor side into a good one overnight, even Sir Alex Ferguson would struggle to save Reading with the side they have, they will have to go for it on Saturday and that will perhaps take them out of their comfort zone and we can reap the benefits.
The message is make it three in a row and we can then start to talk about next season as a Premier League club, until then we need to concentrate on making sure that bottom three stays well behind us, after all defeat at Reading could drag us right back into it, forget 12th place what matter is points and we need to be more than four above the drop zone before we talk of tenth.