The sight of a Saints shirt thrown by a fan on to the pitch perhaps said it all about a game that encompassed the entire season in 90 minutes, as once Saints were the architects of their own downfall.
This game perhaps more than any other was the story of the season, at times Saints were awful and lacked passion and looked a beaten side, but at others they played perhaps their best football of the season. Sadly the individual awful moments were more than the individual good ones.
But sadly the story was mainly about some poor defending and four goals handed to Nottingham Forest, the fact that they only had four shots on target tells you something about the game.
It was one that Saints don't like to play and once again it was a case of a Saints attack breaking down and Forest going on the counter and benefitting from some shocking defencing.
Saints started well enough and in the first 15 minutes it could be claimed that we were the better side, Che Adams seeing a shot blocked, but this was the story of the game, Forest through themselves into the tackle and blocked the ball, too many of our players didn't.
Then against the run of play came the Forest opener, they took a free kick and played it forward quickly and we conceded yet another goal on the break.
Three minutes later it got worse, Forest again poured forward and we had around half a dozen opportunities to clear, we took none of them and the ball was hooked in at close range, Armando Bella-Kotchap failing to get near his man.
We needed to get back in the game quickly and we did, James Ward Prowse nicked the ball we moved forward quickly and a slide rule pass to Charly Alcatraz saw the January signing reduce the deficit.
We were back in the game and as half time approached you felt that getting into the game with only a goal deficit gave us a platform for the second half.
But again we shot ourself in the foot, Ainsley Maitland-Niles initially made a good tackle, but he dawdled on the ball a second too long and their man got his foot in front and then got a penalty, 3-1 down at the break it didn't look good.
But in the second half again we reduced the arrears, a corner headed home by Lyanco, a player who could in the main hold his head up high in the passion he played with.
But with 17 minutes left it was the same old story again, plenty of possession but then given away cheaply, plenty of opportunities to clear and the ball fired home from close range with the keeper flailing and two defenders nowhere.
At this stage you thought that was it, some started to leave, but in fairness Saints kept going, Sulemana saw a decent shot well saved and the Forest crowd were not as vocal as they had been even with a two goal lead.
But they got their voices back when they thought they went 5-2 up, again more poor defending from Saints, but the linesman didn't spot the offside and VAR did and Saints were still in it just.
As 7 minutes of injury time was signalled, much of it due to Forest's blatant gamesmanship, never have I seen a side have players go down with so many injuries and attempt to turn the game into a farce, came a moment that silenced the crowd,
Saints were now pouring forward with the likes of Onauchu on and Romeo Lavia was brought down in the area with James Ward Prowse duly despatching the penalty.
Forest were now desperate, every trick in the book was being used and Saints huffed and puffed but couldn't quite get the goal that would truly have silenced the City Ground.
This was not a great performance by Saints there are some that say our players had no passion, I would say most of them did, but the problem was the ones that have blighted the season, giving the ball away too cheaply, poor marking at set pieces, being unable to defend sides coming at us on the break and lacking concentration at key moments.
But this is mainly down to one thing and that is a lack of leadership on the pitch, James Ward Prowse is a leader by example but is not a leader of men, there is a difference !
We lacked an Alan Ball, a Jimmy Case and in latter days a Steven Davis, players who could organise and lead the team, we lack a Jose Fonte at the back, someone who can hold a line and organise.
We scored 3 goals away from home, that should have been enough to win it, it wasn't because once again we conceded as many and in this case more than we scored.
This finishes us off, mathematically we are not down, that could likely happen at the weekend, there will be many recriminations from the fans, there will be screaming and ranting that the club is rotten from the top to the bottom, that is wrong, to be blunt we can pinpoint where we went wrong, the poor transfer windows, where we failed to sign the leaders that we needed on the pitch, the change of managers, the failure to get someone experienced in to help Ruben Selles.
The list goes on, but they are all things that we can put right, whether we will do in the summer is yet to be decided, but the hope is that we will do.
We have to reboot, reset and then go again.
On a final note I have not been kind to Forest in this report, in truth as a team they are not as good as Saints, but they are better organised and with leaders, they also had magnificent support throughout the majority of the match, anyone who was at the game would not deny that .
Those supporters would rightly claim that with Forest having a League title, two European cups and several other domestic trophies to their name they are a big club, they have waited 25 years to return to the top flight, but they are embracing that.
I always say it is not what you have just done but what you do next and if we want to go straight back up, we have to back the club as those forest fans have done, at Forest the Saints supporters were like the team, at times magnificent and at times not so good, it was not happy clapping, we all got behind the team and roared it on, but Forest's support last night was truly exceptional, they were right behind their team from the off, even though it had the propensity to go wrong for them.
Some of the usual suspects will say I'm having a go at Saints supporters, they couldn't be more wrong, I want our fans to be like the Forest fans were last night, passionate and backing their team from all sides of the ground, we have a core of fans that do that both home and away, let's get this season over, get our gripes off our chest in the final few games, then put it behind us and move forward.