Saints host Charlton Athletic on Saturday and the big question is whether this could post a big statement of intent by seeing us leap into the top six if we can beat Nathan Jones side on his return to St Mary's.

Bristol City's last minute equaliser against Wrexham on Tuesday evening die Saints a big favour, it meant that we go into this weekend's round of fixtures in the Championship within two points of Derby County in that last play off spot.

So the answer to the question posed is that yes we can go into the play off spots if we beat Charlton, but we are need results elsewhere to go for us for that to be the case.

The first of the games we need to keep our eyes on, is on Friday night when Blackburn Rovers host Preston North End, a local derby, although not THE local derby for either club, Preston look towards Blackpool for that and Blackburn hate Burnley.

But in this game, a win for Preston would end our hopes of being in the play off positions come Saturday evening before we have even kicked off, they start two points ahead of us with a goal difference of 4, exactly the same as us.

So a win for them would put them out of reach for this weekend, but a defeat or draw would mean that a win for us would see them jump over them, albeit on goal difference if they were to take a point as Ewood Park.

Next up would be Bristol City's trip to Swansea at 12.30 on Saturday, with the Robin's starting the day a point ahead of us, we need them to either lose or draw in Wales and that would keep them within catching distance.

Kicking off at the same time of us we have Wrexham two points ahead of us hosting Ipswich, Wrexham have a goal difference of 5, one better than us, so if they lose then a win for us would see us above them, but a draw for them could also see them go above them on goal difference if we win by more than 2 goals against Charlton, but on goals for if we win just a single goal.

Finally Derby travel to Watford, as they are level on points with Wrexham, essentially it is the same scenario, if they lose or draw we could go above them, but for that to happen in the event of the draw it is a tougher situation.

They start the day with a goal difference of 8, so we need to turn that round, a two goal deficit for them and a two goal difference triumph over Charlton would do the trick as we have scored one goal more than them going into the weekend, unless of course they were to lose by a stupid scoreline such as 4-2 whilst we won 2-0.

So the truth is that although it is possible that we could get the psychological boost of being in the top 6 come Saturday evening, we are relying on four results going for us, so the odds are a little against us.

But all we can do is keep winning games of football and if we do so, each time we will creep a little nearer to the goal of promotion.

In many respects it highlights just how good we are as a side that we can be so close after such a poor start to the season with the addition of the wobble in December/January.

Just an extra point or two gained in each of those bad runs would have seen us already sitting in the top 6, not conceding those last minute winners at Millwall & Oxford would have changed the perspective of this season completely we would have now been 2 points off 4th spot.

But we can't change what has already happened, we can only change what is about to and that means creating our own luck, the truth is we are a better side indeed a better squad than we were before Xmas, the return of James Bree from loan at Charlton and Sam Edozie from out in the cold has effectively given us two new players to add to Daniel Peretz & Cyle Larin.

Tonda Eckert is slowly but surely learning with each game and we are getting stronger.

All Photos Via Reuters