Saints problem may be that the clubs that they are looking to drag into the relegation fight are all starting to pull away.

A fortnight ago things looked up for Saints, two straight wins had dragged them out of the bottom three and they were looking up at Swansea in ninth place being catchable, indeed the Welsh club were one of a plethora of clubs that Saints would look at as potentially getting dragged into a relegation dogfight, however 1 point from the last two games has seen us drop firmly back into the relegation zone and perhaps more worryingly many of those clubs who Saints were looking at to catch have pulled away.

Swansea, Stoke, West Ham and Norwich are four such clubs, the first three have pulled right away, Stoke are the lowest of them and sitting in ninth place on 22 points, ten ahead of ourselves could be only three wins from staying up, those 9 points aligned with say half a dozen draws could put them out of reach of Saints come May and this is our main worry.

At the moment the clubs in the bottom half of the table are starting to pull clear from the relegation zone, lets be blunt Liverpool and Arsenal may be in that group but they are never going to get relegated even in the turmoil they are in, Newcastle have suffered injuries yet are still way above the relegation zone, 5 points to be exact, even Norwich are 7 ahead of Saints and at this stage of the season thats a massive gap, more to the point with the Canaries though is that they have picked up points against teams that you wouldnt expect, Man Utd and Arsenal at home for instance and that is a big plus, they are probabaly looking for four more wins to keep them safe at this stage.

Fulham are a possibility to drag down, but if we are to make them sweat a bit we have to beat them at their place on Boxing Day, defeat for us would pull them right clear.

So at this moment in time, I feel that only three clubs above us could possibly finish below Saints, Aston Villa, Sunderland & Wigan, this is why its important to win our next two home games, anything less and we show all of these clubs a ray of hope, in relegation dogfights its all about being dragged down into the pack, if you do that to a club it breeds a panic culture in both its players and supporters and frightened and nervous players often find it hard to perform, at this moment in time those at all three clubs will feel that as bad as they have been they are still clear of us and that being the case well capable of leaving us standing with a couple of wins.

If im brutally honest I feel that Aston Villa have the squad to get away from the relegation zone, so that leaves only Sunderland and Wigan as possibilities to be overhauled, this is of course assuming that neither Reading or QPR can put in a decent run.

So its really must win time for Saints in the next few weeks, beat both Reading & Sunderland and we will be well positioned to have a go at dragging Fulham into the mix over the Xmas period and indeed dropping Sunderland into the bottom three, four points from these two games would not be a disaster, but anything less than that and its going to make it tough, indeed even two draws will be a setback, two defeats would be unthinkable as I feel that it will be us then who as a club will feel the tentacles of the relegation zone wrapping around us.

Over the next few weeks it is a crucial period for Saints, talk is that we will spend in the January window and strengthen those areas that we failed miserably to do over the summer, problem is it could be too little too late as some of those clubs that we hoped to catch may be well out of sight by then and if we are not careful the relegation dogfight might only consist of ourselves, Reading and QPR.    

Photo: Action Images

saintmark1976 added 10:44 - Dec 4 Fact:- At the end of the season we need between 36 and 40 points to stay up. Points are points whoever we play. At the death a point at Liverpool on Saturday would have had no more worth than a point away to Fulham at Christmas. I agree with the comments made by slynch reference the Liverpool game. In my opinion it is about time that Mr Adkins (who I want to stay) and the players in particular started to pay less respect to the opposition. Lets get back some of the old Saints spirit and get stuck in. Put some of the opposition's so called better players under pressure and they will make mistakes also. Thereafter if we find ourselves relegated, so what? At least we can say that "we gave it a go".

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stmichael added 11:03 - Dec 4 Take your point Nick but the fact is that we would be happy with 17th , 16th or 15th is a bonus which means that at best we are going to finish above 5 clubs. Beacuse of the start we made 2 of those clubs HAVE to be Reading & QPR. I think we are good enough to finish above Villa or Sunderland and also to be in the mix with Wigan. The rest are too far ahead. Reading at home is clearly massive.

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SingaporeSaint added 11:16 - Dec 4 Yes agree - the league is not that different to what I expected although I thought Norwich and Swansea may be possibly in the mix with us. The difference between them and us is that they have not shown the big teams such respect and got results against them. On Sat it seemed like some of our players were only there for the autographs (or to fight over Gerrard's shirt). Ultimately we can survive, but we need to win more of our home games, scrap for every point away from home and bring in a couple in Jan. It is all to play for but I do agree that Wigan and Sunderland are likely to be our main rivals assuming QPR and Reading will go down.

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LostBoys added 12:14 - Dec 4 As usual it will be three from about six. I think whoever is adrift at Xmas/New Year will find it impossible to get back out of it.
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bstokesaint added 12:54 - Dec 4 I'm a little perplexed. I'm not sure how we were so in awe of such an average Liverpool team. I get that the experience of playing at Anfield must have been a big thing for Rickie and Nigel, but surely this would inspire you wouldn't it? If I got a chance to play at St Mary's I'd seize the opportunity with everything I could. I agree with other posters that 17th wouldn't be a bad finish, provided it's not too uncomfortable on the final day! In all honesty I kind of hoped that mid table wasn't an unrealistic expectation at the start of the season, but a combination of a manager and team finding their feet, strengthening in the wrong areas and a horrible fixture list has changed things considerably. I still think we're much better than some of the teams in this division, but we need to believe it. I respect and admire Nigel, and I want him to succeed, but he needs to wise up and be a bit more ruthless. Call a spade a spade. Be disappointed in post match interviews when we’ve had a shocker. Saturday was a dross performance and the reluctance to use impact subs (which he has always endorsed) from a losing position is mystifying. I think it's a tad disrespectful to say he's "out of his depth", because we all know his history and he's earned this chance. We need some bite. We don't win penalties, we don't get players against us booked because they have to do what they can to stop us and basically just quietly play pretty football. Nigel may well take a different approach with the team in the dressing room and have a lot of faith in his first XI, but he needs to adapt and pick up points from the next two games if we’re going to have a good Christmas! COYR.

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simmo400 added 13:04 - Dec 4 The final league table will decide if we were good enough. Nuff said.
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NigD added 13:25 - Dec 4 I for one just believe we should all simply cut the negativity and understand that our team and management are just 'learning the ropes' within the Premiership. Let's stay positive and get behind them in every way. They are not doing anything but trying their best! The Championship holds no fear for this club. We know if we are relegated we can come back even stronger? So everybody give it a good go this season. I still believe that we will be much stronger in the second half of the season and from the games I have seen and the way we are trying to play football the right way, we really do not have anything to fear about this league or as said before the league below. Have fun and enjoy it. Nobody is trying to lose. Merry Christmas!

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Jesus_02 added 13:40 - Dec 4 West Ham are 10points off in 8th They had a a great result against Chelsea but I cant see them finnishing the season in 8th. Its a long seasn
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SaintNick added 14:36 - Dec 4 given that we have got only 12 points all season 10 points is a long gap, I appreciate that we may well be stronger in the second half of the season, but thats the whole point of keeping these clubs within sight
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StSaint added 14:44 - Dec 4 I've said it before and I'll say it again. As long as we play football in the right way and continue to build towards a solid, sustainable future that we can be proud of, then I'm not too fussed about the bumps along the way (which could include relegation). Everyone makes mistakes and it is so easy to be critical after the event. Also the very nature of these type of sites is that people come on to have a moan, so it can give a pretty distorted view. Before we beat QPR the majority of posters were saying it's time for Adkins to go, though at the game there was continuous support. He's not out of his depth. We have the youngest starting 11 in the league (this is a good thing) and as a result, they will make lots of mistakes. This article says we are running out of clubs that could get relegated. What a complete load of tosh. Its the 4th Dec and we aren't even half way through the season yet!! If you want to see panic then just look on here after a couple of matches where we don't win - it's priceless.

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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 15:22 - Dec 4 If we went down then we'd lose a lot of our best players. Ramirez has already got one foot out the door. I think Lallana would leave, even though he loves the club. If he wants to get another England call up then he'd have to be playing in the Premiership and there would be plenty of Premiership clubs coming in for him. Clyne and Shaw would probably leave. Cork and Schniederlin would they stay? What if Lambert got offered another chance at the big time, he'd probably leave too. Going down would be a disaster. There's no question about it. Look at how Blackburn, Bolton and Wolves are doing this year! 12th, 17th and 18th. Getting promoted from the Championship is incredibly difficult, what we did last year was phenominal and not easily replicated, especially after losing all of your best players. If we went down it might take a few years to get back to the Premiership, and by that time you'd have to do it with a largely new team. Whereas if we stay up this year then we can build for next year with the same players, strengthening where needed and become a mid-table Premiership side. Survival is everything.

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StSaint added 15:46 - Dec 4 I disagree. Unless the owner changes hands then we would not be under the financial pressure to sell all of our players. Ramirez would go, but we would probably get at least our money back there. Otherwise the players are young (apart from Lambert) and playing regularly. I think we would be fine if we went down. Neither of us will know until it happens and hopefully we won't have to find out!

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mattlegod added 16:01 - Dec 4 It's a marathon, not a sprint. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey etc etc. No need for panic yet chaps, there are teams as likely to collapse and have a bad run leading to 12 points in the next 15 games as we are to go on a run of good results and get 24 leading to a very close finish in true historic saints familiarity! Less of the negativity please, we get that from the DE!

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landsdownsaint added 17:29 - Dec 4 I think a lot of teams are catchable and we got the transfer window in Jan...saying that I'm not sure NA knows what to do with big money !
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BoondockSaint added 04:22 - Dec 5 Financial pressure has nothing to do with it. We have to stay up for the same reason we needed promotion last year: We can't have the better players leave. Then you have years of rebuilding. Unfortunately that's football: The richer bigger teams will swoop in. You can't really blame the players, their careers are only so long and no matter how loyal they want to be, do they really want to waste 2 or 3 years of their careers bouncing around the lower leagues on lower pay, hoping to get back into the Prem when they could be on more money and playing in the Prem immediately? The other worry is that the family decide this lower league football thing isn't for them and decide to turn a profit now and sell.

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eusebio added 12:42 - Dec 5 We will be 14th
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