Despite a season of complete inconsistency and the fact we have taken only two points from the last four games, Saints could move into 8th if they beat Arsenal this evening.
There are many Saints fans who can't wait for the season to end,the dichotomy is that to the casual observer we look like a club about to have another great season, one that has seen us reach the League Cup Final, a Europa League campaign and on the verge of another top ten finish.
But you would find few Saints fans who would be in complete agreement with that, it has been one of swings from one week to the next, one that has not seen more than two Premier League wins in a row and one of strange team selections and substitutions, the word is inconsistency.
If we had found even a little consistency then we would now sit comfortably in 8th and would be staring down the necks of Everton in 7th.
But that has not been the case all season and we have to look at sides like Bournemouth and Burnley playing out of their skins and breathing down our own necks where we put in lacklustre performances but still have a squad able to pull out wins here and there, despite never being able to find any sort of form, at least not on a regular basis.
The teams directly above us West Brom and Everton have found that sort of form at times, as have the teams below us, we never have and there has to be a reason for that.
It would be easy to blame the rotation policy of earlier in the season, but the results have been no better since the New Year when that was effectivily abandoned.
Rotation policies can work if they are implemented properly and I'm afraid to say that ours wasn't, the changes made often made no sense, in form players were dropped and out of form players stayed in and it all added up to disjointed performances.
That of course came down to the manager who seemed to wan't to make his mark immediately rather than look at what he had to hand and slowly make his presence felt, that meant a change in playing style that we did not have the personnel to adapt to at least not immediately and a squad that wanted consistency (That word again) in the manager's selections and found none.
Harsh on Claude Puel, yes perhaps, but it is the manager that has to carry the can and although there have been many factors that have not helped the Frenchman, it has to be said he hasn't helped himself in many of the things he has done.
The playing style that Puel wanted to introduce did not suit the type of strikers that he had at his disposal and therefore perhaps the best thing to have done was ease his playing style gradually into the squad, instead it was forced on them from day one and it meant that players like Nathan Redmond were forced to play out of position and bear the brunt of the fans anger.
In January Puel did get the striker he needed and started to get the results, but he was again let down by Les Reed and his back room team who failed to land a replacement for Jose Fonte, this was made worse when Virgil Van Dijk got injured leaving Puel with two central defenders who would both be ok as back up but neither as number one choice, if you disagree ask yourself would you be happy if this was the case at the start of next season, the answer would be no and i doub't Puel would be either.
The case of Martin Caceres is a strange one, despite having a defence that leaks goals, Caceres has not had even a minute of playing time and that is baffling.
So now we have a playing style that as shown at Liverpool has to abandon all attacking options, it relies on protecting the centre of our defence and going on the break, but when it does it cannot commit players forward otherwise it exposes the defence as Manchester City and Chelsea did to aplomb.
So Claude Puel is not helping himself with not trying Caceres, but apart from that he does not have much option other than try to keep it tight at the expense of attacking, if he tries to attack as he did at Chelsea and at home to City, he finds his defence ripped apart as they do not have the speed or nous to stop counter attacks at speed and if he counters that himself by keeping a solid midfield trio sitting deep, he finds his strikers isolated as they were at Liverpool.
All of this combined finds a manager who appears unsure of what to do for the best, a team who are short of confidence because they are unsure of what the manager is going to do next and this all adds up to inconsistency.
The frustrating thing is that we are the 7th best team in the division, possibly the 6th, the difference between us and Everton is a striker that can score 15 goals or more, even if we had one in double figures then we would be comfortably above West Brom now.
So what does the future hold for Claude Puel at Southampton, at times he has shown that he is the man for the job, but every time that has stated to happen, things have conspired against him, injuries, suspensions and issues off the field ie Jose Fonte.
Perhaps Claude Puel is just an unlucky manager, but I think the issue has been his failure to adapt to certain situations, too often he has made the wrong team selections, resulting in dropping points we really should have kept.
Too often he does not seem able to change style or formation, again frustratingly when he has done and got results he quickly changes back again.
That goes for his team selections, Jordy Clasie would be a recent example after being in the cold for two months he returned and scored at West Brom was arguably man of the match and then his reward has been to not get another minute on the pitch and now not even in the squad.
That is inconsistency from the manager and highlights why his squad cannot find any confidence or consistency.
Thankfully the team spirit seems to still be there and that has got us through some games but how much longer can that hold.
The truth is that in virtually every game that we have got points in since January we could easily have lost them due to poor defending and the opposition's inability to convert easy chances including penalties.
So as the title says, it is inconsistency that has cost Saints dearly meaning that this season has been one of brilliant highs as in Inter Milan at home, the two Liverpool semi finals and Wembley, but has also seen too many crushing lows.
It has lacked what Koeman has taken to Everton the ability to find a formula that mans that we can put in 4 game winning streaks every now and then and soar up the table.