PROMOTION FORM.....

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Saints' away record is promotion form By Benny Younglove
Posted on Tuesday 04 Nov 2008 12:12:00

Though Saints currently lie 20th in the Championship table, they are actually 7th based on their away record, with only Wolves having won more matches outside of their home stadium. In this regard, promotion via the play-offs should be well within Southampton’s sights. However, Saints are firmly in the bottom three when it comes to home record. Oh well, you can’t have it all.

Only Wolves, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol City, Plymouth and Blackpool have taken more points on the road this season, meaning that Saints have done better than teams like Reading, QPR and Derby in this respect. Ten points from a possible twenty-four may not be brilliant, but in this closely fought league, it seems that only seven teams have won more than a third of their games away from home.

You might expect this from Wolves, Birmingham and perhaps Cardiff, but the other three teams mentioned are, together with Southampton, the only sides to have performed better away than at home. Critically though, they’ve still won as many as they’ve lost at their own place, whereas Saints have only won once from seven attempts, and have conceded more than fellow strugglers Doncaster and Nottingham Forest (the other two clubs with only one home win) in the process. Also, six goals scored in seven home games is also relegation form.

So why such a contrast?

Well, poor home form leads to lower gates and lower gates lead to worse support which leads to poor home form, and back round again we go. But is it as simple as that?

Unlike other sides in the league, Saints appear to play in exactly the same way, wherever they play. And while the pressure of expectation might be too much at St Mary’s, the onus on the home team to attack and lead the game affords Saints many more opportunities to frustrate the play and dominate for large periods when not at home. For this reason, it seems that Poortvliet’s tactics are ideally suited to getting results on the road, whereas they often come unstuck by teams that are used to playing the ‘away game’, soaking up pressure and countering our play on the break.

Obviously, we don’t want things to change on our travels, but it’s vitally important that our home record improves if we are to hold any ambitions of achieving anything other than narrow safety this season.

What could or should be done therefore, to improve home form?

We could try starting with the side that finished against Preston.

Sounds like the problem England were having. No confidence at home, as fans give them grief. No pressure away, which is not the way it should be!

Hard to get an atmosphere when half the ground is closed. Let's hope that some more turn up for Bristol.

Not showing promotion form now home or away. Hope our missing players are fit to play soon.

Should we ask Camelot for some charity?

Are they still running the lottery then?