In his weekly column, Saints legend Lawrie McMenemy gives Daily Echo readers his take on the week's events.

WE are now into the last third of the Premier League season and most of the managers in the top flight will be sitting and thinking ‘we are out of the cups, we only have one thing to concentrate on.’

That will be survival in the case of the bottom six, and I suppose the middle eight, whereas the top six have to try and make their way into the top four to qualify for the Champions League.

Looking at the table Londoners should be happy with the top three teams being Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal.

There are two from Manchester, and then Merseyside, as ever, making an effort with Everton under our old friend Mr Koeman doing well to try and break into the group which in the old days they were always part of.

If we look at the bottom six, this is the time when managers have got to get the players together, cards on the table, and ask ‘where do you want to be next season?’ In addition of course we read about clubs who have put into contracts clauses so if they are relegated the players see their salaries drop by as much as 40 per cent, and no one would like that.

The fact is there are no easy games anywhere. Ask Liverpool who went to Hull City last week.

The bookmakers probably made quite a bit of money with Hull, who were bottom at the time, coming out with a convincing 2-0 win.

They of course have changed manager and like a lot of the continental gentlemen coming in was largely unheard of, but he has certainly had a good start.

I suppose the most surprising situation of all is last year’s champions Leicester, who are now only a point above the relegation zone.

Whilst they won in the cup replay in midweek, they know it is points that are the most important, and to read about their manager, Claudio Ranieri, possibly being under threat of losing his job after winning the league against all odds less than a year ago and being voted manager of the year by everyone from here to kingdom come, is ridiculous.

Having said all that, something obviously hasn’t been right, but now is the time to sort it out.

Other clubs who possibly had starts which were too good to be true include our neighbours Bournemouth, who I would remind everybody only have a capacity of about 11,500.

They looked as though they were establishing themselves in that mid-eight group but are now looking over their shoulder after letting in six goals at Everton.

To be fair they did score three and any team scoring three goals away from home would normally have a point or three to bring home with them.

The argument about too many games, too many fixtures – and I heard radio talk about possibly altering the FA Cup to playing only one game with no replays - personally I think is rubbish.

The league has less clubs in than before, the squads of players are probably double what they used to be, and the money coming in of course is as if every club has won the lottery compared to a decade or two ago, but in the dressing room nothing has changed.

Managers will have to get into their players the importance of the upcoming games.

The finishing line is not really in sight yet but they have been in the season long enough to know exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are and I can imagine lots of work going on defensively with clubs hoping they can score goals, such as the couple we saw Leicester come up with in extra time to beat Derby County.

A substitute came on and after two and half minutes, would you believe, had the cheek to take a shot from outside the penalty area.

It surprised everyone and went into the corner of the net.

Why, why, why do they not do it more often?

Yet again I have to point out there were no defenders on the post for corners and I wonder if the statisticians who tell us everything almost down to how much chewing gum Sam Allardyce gets through can count the number of goals that go in by the posts from corners.

Never mind, happy days. It is still the best and most interesting league of them all, which is why we attract so many viewers, managers, players and owners from all around the world.