As we approach the half way mark of the season, in many other years Southampton would have found themselves in the top 2 going into the New Year but not this year with Leicester & Ipswich on a phenomenal run, the festive period usually sorts out the wheat from the chafe and by the New Year Saints supporters will know where their chances of automatic promotion lie.
Saints start a run of 4 games on Saturday at Queens Park Rangers, sandwich in two home games against Swansea & Plymouth and end it with a trip to Norwich City, by the end of it they will have a good idea whether they have a chance of catching the top two.
On paper these are four very winnable games, but it has to be said that in the past four weeks, our away form has been an issue, although our unbeaten run has continued, 3 straight draws on the road has cost us dearly with two of them seeing us conceded late injury time equalisers.
So we have to get our game back track, those two disappointing results at Huddersfield & Watford where we snatched a draw from the jaws of victory would have made a big difference to the League table as it stands this morning, we would have been within catching distance of Ipswich in second.
The chances of us ending the period in the top two is slim, all we can do is win our games and hope that results go for us elsewhere as they did last weekend when both Ipswich & Leeds dropped points.
There is a great chance to do that with this weekend as the first of the Xmas period fixtures start, Leeds will be playing Ipswich at Elland Road, so someone has to drop points there, on paper a draw would perhaps be the best result, but we cannot afford Ipswich to win this one if we are to harbour hopes of catching them.
In the Boxing Day fixtures Leeds travel to Preston & Ipswich host Leicester City, so again points have to be dropped.
So the first two fixtures are crucial to Southampton, win both games and we will be putting pressure on the top two.
Going into next weekend and we could have the chance to put further pressure on, whilst we host Plymouth, Leicester travel to Cardiff, so a tough game although Ipswich have on paper an easier game hosting QPR, Leeds travel to West Brom.
Finally in the opening games of 2024, whilst we travel to Norwich, Leicester are at home to Huddersfield, Ipswich are at Stoke and at Elland Road, Leeds play Birmingham City.
So this look at the fixture list suggests one thing and that is Saints have to win the first two games of the festive period and if they do so they will have an advantage going into the final two games and hopefully momentum.
So a big 10 day period coming up for the top four in the Championship and we have to be putting the pressure on the 3 clubs above us going into this weekend, I have always said that our advantage is not only the quality of our squad but the quantity, that has been stretched already in the past few weeks with the longer term issues to Sulemana & Ross Stewart, but also shorter term problems, notably missing Flynn Downes.
Hopefully the squad will be up to the task and the key will be using the squad and more to the point using it well, I did not think we have done so in the past few games, especially in the home win over Blackburn, we should have put them to bed long before we did, but two many changes disrupted the flow of the team, substitutions have to be made for a reason and giving someone a game after injury should not be a priority, making sure we dont slip up in the dying embers of a game has to be the first though of the manager.
If the team are up for the fight, then it has to be said so are the fans, for QPR we are again travelling in big numbers with over 3,000 tickets snapped up within a day of the allocation going on sale, Swansea on Boxing Day is already a sell out even with the Welsh club sending back around 1,300 tickets and the Plymouth game is on the verge of a sell out with less than 140 tickets left for sale as of Thursday morning with over a week to go before the game.
Likewise for the trip to Norwich on New Years Day, 2,000 tickets have been sold with only a hundred or so still available.
One thing that is emerging is that the bulk of Southampton supporters are behind the manager and the team and can see the progress that has been made, yes not everything has been right, but in the last three months we have changed from a team in transition into one that has had the tightest defence, one of the most potent attacks and has picked up more points, perhaps those 4 straight defeats will cost us dearly come the end of the season, but we can't change that now, we just have to concentrate on what we are doing ourselves.
So here we go for a 10 day period that will either see us firmly cement ourselves into the race for automatic promotion or still playing catch up, but tea time on 1st January we will know the answer.