Last week's defeat to Kilmarnock was our final game in the second round of fixtures. We have played everyone home and away and now seems as good a time to take stock of where we are. There is no question that we have produced some entertaining, enjoyable football that has brought some high points, like the games against Rangers, and some low points, such as the League Cup disaster and the defeats to Inverness Caley Thistle.
It has often been said we do not have a points tally that matches how we have played and I would agree with that - although it's mainly our fault due to our wastefulness in front of goal and our messing about at the back. As a result we are in eighth place with 26 points, which have been accrued through six wins and eight draws. It's a decent total - indeed our highest ever at this stage of the season - and a few more wins should have us pretty much safe by the split and still in with a shout of making the top six.
However, it's not much of an improvement. Here's how our points tallies stood after 22 games, 33 games (the split) and 38 games (the end of the season) from the last five seasons, with our current points tally thrown in for good measure.
| Season | Points after 22 games | Points at the split | Final tally |
| 2006/07 | 23 | 27 | 36 |
| 2007/08 | 25 | 33 | 41 |
| 2008/09 | 25 | 34 | 37 |
| 2009/10 | 20 | 28 | 34 |
| 2010/11 | 18 | 28 | 33 |
| 2011/12 | 26 | - | - |
The 2007/08 season is skewed slightly by the fact we'd only played 32 games by the split, rather than 33 - but we lost the extra game to Rangers so it's meaningless.
As you can see, we managed a reasonably solid first 22 games in our first three seasons back in the SPL, the last two being a bit of a disaster. The problem has then been the run from New Year to the split. The highest points return we've managed between games 22 and 33 is 10 - and that was last season when it helped salvage a shocking start. The rest of the time we've had a bit of a disaster.
In 2007 we didn't win at all between New Year's Day and the split. 2008 is a bit of a red herring as it's the Gretna season. In 2009 we managed just one win between the turn of the year and the split, although six draws helped boost our tally before we tried our hardest to get relegated with our worst ever post split return. The following season there was again only one win between games 22 and 33 - the memorable 4-0 hammering of Celtic. Things were better last season but, as I said, we were coming from a much lower points tally so were once again fighting the drop.
So where does that leave us? The previous two rounds of 11 games this season have seen us notch up 13 points and another return like that should have us safe by the split and leave us perfectly placed for our best ever SPL points return. The very least we should be after is to take our tally to 34 points come the split in April and then hope to avoid the disasters of three years ago.
But all this talk of relegation is a bit negative, so let's finish on a positive. What would we need to do if we want to make the top six? Well, in four of the last five seasons the sixth placed side has had 44 points at the time of the split - on the other they had 42 points but had only played 32 games.
So, if the top six is the target we probably need to find 18 points over the next 11 games. That's the equivalent of six wins, which sounds a lot. But four wins and four draws? That's maybe doable - and taking some of those wins against our rivals for a coveted top six would certainly help our cause.
As long as we don't repeat the mistakes of previous seasons and go from now to the split without a single win...
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