Yes, I'll happily agree with that. I honestly believe that we'll end up with about 44 points, but if you apply the same logic to the teams beneath us...
Villa 30 points from 26, ratio of 1.15 points per game, final total 44/45 points
Middlesborough 28 points from 25, ratio of 1.12 points per game, final total 42/43 points
West Brom 26 points from 26, ratio of 1 point per game, final total 38 points
Small Heath 20 points from 25, ratio of 0.8 points per game, final total 30/31 points
Portsmouth 18 points from 26, ratio of 0.69 points per game, final total 26/27 points
Sunderland 10 points from 25, ratio of 0.4 points per game, final total 15/16 points.
The point I was trying to make was that, yes, we may only scrape past 40 points, but there are going to be a lot of teams below us that do even worse. Simply put, we are going to be saved, not by being good enough ourselves, but by at least three teams being worse than us.