Southampton vs Fulham - 5 Reasons Why Saints Will Continue Wonder Run

4. Depleted Competition

Let's be honest, the competition hasn't been there this season. Man City haven't exactly thrived under Manuel Pellegrini, Jose Mourinho's return to Chelsea has not been a resounding success so far, Tottenham is struggling without Bale and have bought so many players, they are struggling to adjust and Manchester United have really struggled without Sir Alex Ferguson and have had a very poor transfer window. The squad is not as strong as in years gone by. David Moyes plays too conservatively and is probably out of his depth. The only two real success stories so far has been Liverpool and Arsenal, who regularly fall apart as the season goes on. The lack of any real competition from the usual clubs, has allowed Saints and their consistently high level of performances to be ahead of the Old Trafford side after the first 8 games. Whether or not the Saints can continue their wonder run, but they do have a series of games against some of the bigger sides in the league, with Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham in the space of six games. Something that I was critical of Pochettino at the end of last season, was his ability to beat the bigger clubs and yet drop points against the teams we needed points off. I said that had we kept Adkins, we'd have been safe with 6 games to go, as we may not have beaten Chelsea or Man City at home, but we would have beaten the teams around us like QPR, leaving me to contemplate whether Pochettino only shows up for the big games, and not the bread and butter games. However, now Pochettino has started winning against both similar sized teams to ourselves, and still gets points off the top 6. This leaves me confident that we can get 3 points on Saturday against Fulham, and still go on to get some points against our upcoming top 6 opposition, who have had mixed starts to the campaign. If at least one of the top 6 continues to under-perform and we continue to over-perform, there is no reason why we can't continue this fine run of form, and finish in the top 6 at least.