English Football League / The Betfair Contrarian / 04 August 2010 / 2

They may have won the Johnstone's Paint Trophy last year, but Southampton aren't used to challenging, let alone being the team that everybody raises their game against and wants to beat. The silverware-shy League One side haven't even finished in the top five of a league since 1985, yet are huge favourites for promotion. It's no wonder the Contrarian is laying them at [1.77]...

Southampton always start badly...
One way of practically guaranteeing a spot in the promotion tussle is by starting strongly. Leeds, for example, went up last year despite collapsing after Christmas because they took 30 points from their first dozen matches. Southampton, however, just never get under way convincingly, having kicked off just one of the last 21 seasons with a victory (1999-00). The Saints' ten-point deduction was blamed for their failure to return to the Championship last year, however if they hadn't started out with a seven-match winless streak, it may never have been an issue.

...and normal service should be resumed
The south coast club haven't been helped in their bid to finally get off to a decent start by the fixture computer, which has dealt them a daunting first few games. They begin against relegated Plymouth Argyle, who have a new boss in Peter Reid and are expected to compete for promotion. New manager syndrome threatens to hit them again in their first away game, when they face MK Dons, who are now led by 29-year-old Karl Robinson.

Pardew struggles with expectation
The greatest achievements of Alan Pardew's managerial career have come when expectations have been low. He took Reading from mid-table in the third tier to fourth in the Championship as a rookie boss, then guided West Ham to the FA Cup Final in 2005-06, when relegation appeared more likely. But whenever the pressure has been cranked up, he's failed to deliver. It went wrong in east London when Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano arrived and talk of the Champions League surfaced, while he struggled to handle being the team to beat in the Championship at both West Ham and Charlton, leaving the latter in the bottom three. At St Mary's, it's not just promotion but the title that is anticipated, by the board, supporters and even rival fans, and chairman Nicola Cortese is very hard to please.

Standing by your man isn't rewarded
There was talk at the end of last season that Cortese was going to sack Pardew and, while that would have felt harsh, it could have proven beneficial. Seven of the last eight managers to secure automatic promotion from League One did so in their first full season at that level with their club, so while chairmen who continually axe coaches are criticised, there is logic in adopting that approach.

League One is always hotly contested
Nottingham Forest and Leeds both took three seasons to claw their way out of League One, so regardless of their stature or spending power Southampton are unlikely to dominate the division. Last year, six teams picked up 80 points or more, and three of those - Charlton, Swindon and Huddersfield - are still there, while Peterborough and Plymouth collected 89 and 90 respectively on their last stay. Over the last two seasons, 11 League One sides have managed 80 points or more, compared to five in the Championship and four in League Two. It's always very hard to pull clear.

Nobody goes up at the second attempt
Of the 36 teams relegated from the Championship between 1996-97 and 2007-08, just one that failed to go up immediately recovered to win promotion the following year (Sheffield Wednesday, 04-05). As if that doesn't illustrate just how tough it is to climb out if you don't do it straight away, five clubs suffered a further relegation in their second season after dropping out of the second tier.

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1. MikSFC | 05 August 2010

   Without our 10 point deduction, we too would have finished on 80+ points last season, and that was with a terrible start. This bad start was in no way surprising given that we had virtually gone out of existence only weeks before and the majority of the squad had a 'losing mentality' engrained into them following a torrid season of financial and footballing uncertainty. I'm sorry but this story smacks of lazy, stat's based journalism and I would suggest the writer probably didn't pop along to St Marys to see Saints play too many times in the last 7 or 8 months of last season!

2. Clem Hardy | 02 May 2011

   I guess they and all the stats were wrong

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