For 20 minutes on Saturday night Saints had dropped to 5th place in the Premier table as it stood but thanks to ex Saints Jason Puncheon they soon returned to 4th.

It was a relatively good day for Saints on Saturday as they had to sit back and watch most of their rivals in the top 10 play and possibly make up ground on us, but the real threat came from Spurs who if they won at Selhurst Park could jump above us into the top four.

That looked a big possibility when Harry Kane gave them the lead a few minutes after the break and it was hard to see anything other than a Tottenham victory at that point.

But enter a man of the match winning performance from Jason Puncheon who grabbed a winner with ten minutes left after the Eagles had equalised through a hotly disputed penalty with 70 minutes gone.

This result was a big boost for Saints in their bid for a European place, if Spurs had won it would have given them the advantage, but the defeat keeps them two points behind and Saints know that if they draw at Old Trafford then can ensure that whatever happens next weekend Spurs cannot overtake them, if they win they can not only leave Spurs trailing but jump over United themselves, not to mention leave Arsenal wondering just what they have to do to get ahead of us.

But it wasn't just at Palace that the results went for us, Swansea's draw with West Ham was the best result possible from that game, a win for the Hammers would have put them only a point behind us so both clubs dropping points was the ideal scenario for Saints.

Newcastle defeat at Chelsea was to form and we know that the title race is now a two horse one between Chelsea and Man City, from our perspective below us it leaves Newcastle trailing in our wake by 9 points going into today game, if we can widen that gap today and then beat them next week the Toon army will be too far behind to catch us.

The only result on Saturday that didn't go our way was Liverpool trip to Sunderland, a 1-0 win for the Merseyside club leaves them only four points behind and with the return of Daniel Sturbridge imminent they should not be written off.

So its just today's two games to worry about now, firstly if Stoke can get anything at Arsenal it will do us a big favour, indeed if the Potters win it would jump them above Newcastle into 10th and leave them breathing down the necks of Swansea.

After that its our game at Manchester United and we know what we need to do.

Photo: Action Images

brian1fish added 05:33 - Jan 12 Sign Puncheon Up !! He's good.
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