Southampton boss Russell Martin has hailed the ongoing Championship race for promotion as unique, as he believes that in any other season, Saints would have been in the top two with their current points tally.
Saints have so far accumulated 70 points from 35 games and they find themselves in a four way automatic promotion race with Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Leeds United fighting for the top two spots.
After three straight defeats, Southampton bounced back against Birmingham City at the weekend and on Wednesday they will take on Preston North End before they welcome Sunderland on Saturday.
Martin admitted that their upcoming games this week are going to be decisive for them and believes that Southampton have a good opportunity to put themselves in a good position by winning the games against Preston and Sunderland.
The Saints boss also pointed out that they are experiencing a unique season, as he is confident that with their current point tally, they would be in the top two by quite a margin in any other campaign.
“We have three games this week, a huge week for us”, Martin said at a press conference.
“I can pretend it is not, but it is and we could put ourselves in a really brilliant position.
“It is unique, we are averaging two points a game; any other season, I think it would put you in the top two by quite a some way.
“This season it is not, it is not going to be enough.
“We have to fight for everything.”
Southampton are currently five points short of second place Ipswich Town and with eleven games remaining in the league, it remains to be seen whether they will be able to land an automatic promotion spot.
