Saints finished 7th last year and sneaked into the Europa league courtesy of the fact that both Cup winners had qualified for the Champions League and therefore did not need the Europa League place.
This years European qualification rules and regulations have been complicated due to the Europa League now offering a Champions League place for the winners, this means that technically if Liverpool were to win that competition and finish in the top seven in the Premier League then Saints could finish 8th and still get a Europa League spot.
The first rule is that you have to consider the Europa League Champions League spot as a wild card entry and not subject to the normal regulations.
As it stands the top four qualify for the Champions League and then it gets messy because through the normal routes of qualification only four teams from England can qualify, so if City win the competition and finish in the top four only four teams can qulify through the League, but if City say win the CL and finish 5th then they get the 4th CL spot and if it was Manchester United in 4th they would not get into the Cl but go into the Europa League.
Confusing eh, but the simple fact is that assuming that City and Liverpool do not win the European trophies then for 7th place to mean qualification for the Europa league again it needs City to finish in the top 4 and not need the 2nd Europa League place and United to win the FA Cup and then the 3rd place would go to the League again.
But !!!!!!!!!!
If all that happened and Liverpool won the Europa League then they would qualify for the Champions League as this route and we could have 5 teams in the CL, but only through this route.
That being the case then the Europa League place that Liverpool look like getting at the moment would pass o the league.
This is the hypothetical table or variations of it final table that would allow 8th to qualify.
1 Leicester City CL
2, Spurs CL
3. Arsenal CL
4, Man City CL (Through either league or CL win)
5. Man United EL through winning FA Cup
6. West Ham EL
7. Liverpool CL through winning EL
8. Saints EL
It's confusing but in simple terms we need Manchester United to win the FA Cup and Liverpool to win the Europa League.
It will pain many Saints fans to cheer them both on to glory, but the truth is that this is our most realisitc chance of Europa League qualification unless we overhaul both Liverpool and west Ham
So there is all to play for in the final four games, we have to do our bit first though and win them.