With Newcastle United's defeat at Arsenal last night Saints are now virtually assured of finishing 8th in the Premier League, well almost !

Newcastle's 3-0 defeat at the Emirates on Monday evening means that they are now six points behind us with two games to play, mathematically they can still win those two games and overtake us providing that we lose to both Swansea City and Manchester United in our final two.

This set of results would of course mean that we would finish the season level with the Toon Army on 52 points, but we have one distinct advantage going into the last days of the season and that is our superior goal difference, we start this final twoweekends of the season with a goal difference of plus 25 better than Newcastle.

This means that effectively they if we lost both of our two games six nil and they won both of theirs six nil then they would still be a goal short of pipping us on goal difference for 8th spot, given that their final game of the season is at Anfield that probably isnt going to happen and that isn't even counting the extra goal on top of those four freak results they would need to haul back those 25 goals and overtake us on goals scored.

So Saints can now effectively relax and concentrate on firstly getting the point needed to mean this is our best ever points total in a Premier League season and secondly perhaps blood a few youngsters in the final two matches.

We can now play without pressure in that we now know (25 goal turnarounds aside) that we cannot finish any higher or lower than we now are, therefore there is nothing to be gained or lost financially and we can just enjoy these final two games and start to plan for next season.

Photo: Action Images

StEdmund added 09:28 - Apr 29 Time to rest Lallana to save him getting injured before the World Cup?
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davepid added 13:13 - Apr 29 Nic, do you know how much prize money comes with 8 th spot?
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cheltenhamsaint added 15:35 - Apr 29 The "prize money" element, referred to as a merit payment, for finishing 8th is £14.6 million. The bottom club wins £1.1m, rising for each place by the same increment to £19m for the winners.
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davepid added 19:40 - Apr 29 Thanks for the info Cheltenham Saint. A sum of money worth having .
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