How many Points Do Southampton Need?

Nearly achieving the impossible dream last season, we have become firm favourites everywhere to gain automatic promotion this time around.

To achieve this we will still need a couple of players to strengthen our squad as it is a very long season. Wer have seen already, how easy it is to suddenly find a host of players become unavailable through injury.

It seems that every man and his dog knows how pressing the need is for Southampton to gain promotion this season. So how will the points needed to achieve this be worked out.

To gain automatic promotion has needed at least 79 points points over recent years. The highest points scored by a team finishing second is 89.

With a few teams possibly expected to test the resourses at Southampton just how many we will need is not an easy figure to come by.

Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth Arhyle and Peterborough have all bought to improve their squads simnce getting relegated last season from the Championship.

Rochdale, Bournemouth and Notts County have also bought since gaining promotion. Add the likes of Huddersfield and Swindon to the mix and it seems as though this season could be even tougher than the last.

So how many points will secure us an automatic place come May? If the leading clubs persistently take points off of each other, the total needed could be lower than that of last season.

Our home form was good last time round and this season we can at least equal that. If we aim for 90 points overall we should be in the top two places and maybe even champions.

I imagine all of the clubs mentioned have looked at the possibilities and come to the same conclusion. Others such as Brighton will also be hoping to get into the top end of the league.

Each team plays 23 matches at home and would hope for a minimum of 18 wins. That alone would see you ending up with 54 points at home. That would leave you needing 36 points from the away games to reach the target of 90 points.

So to gain the 90 points what do we need to do? First we need to average 2 points per game. The old adage of win at home and draw away would achieve this.

Be better than that if you could win ten games away from home. Another possibility is simply for us to win four out of every six games so that we reach the target.

With our fairly tough start we will quickly know as to how close we can get to the projected target. A good start is essential to boost the squads confidence but we did show that this points tartget is distinctly possible.