The game ended in an ironic familiar fashion with a soft last minute of injury time goal conceded that has been the hallmark of this season, but Saints fans didn't care they knew The Great Survival had been completed.

Season 1998/99 was dubbed the Great Escape as Saints stormed to Premier League safety after spending all but the last two games in either 19th or 20th place, this season was different, Saints went into steady decline after a solid start, they did not hit the relegation zone till the final third of the season and apart from a month from mid March till mid April spent most of the rest of the season clear of the bottom three.

But the issues were there for all to see, unlike 1999 this was not a storming ending to the season, but we crawled over the line, therefore this was The Great Survival, just as much down to the inability of Swansea to win any of their last 10 games and end the season with five straight defeats than our own endeavours, indeed we won only 2 of our last 11 games, gaining 11 points in the process, it was not our own team we needed to thank for our survival but the three teams below us who were worse.

Having said this, there was a change in attitude and performance levels in the squad, it would have been naive to think that Mark Hughes had a magic wand which he could wave and suddenly transform a squad in complete chaos and with zero confidence, however in the final games he did so to a degree, but we were not just fighting other teams we were fighting poor refereeing and just plain bad luck.

We knew this game would be hard, we knew that City would have a lot of possession, but we dug in and made sure that it counted for little, although City had 70% of the ball as I predicted in the preview of the game, they spent too much time trying to create the perfect chance and we worked hard to make sure they didn't get it, the fact that they had only two shots on target speaks volumes given their possession and we managed three ourselves.

Indeed as the game went on and it was clear that the ten goal swing was not going to happen, we grew in confidence and looked the side most likely to score in the later part of the second half, Dusan Tadic having a shot cleared off the line.

This game ended the way that many of the others have done, for over 90 minutes we battled like trojans, yet in the final minute of the final injury time of the season, we did exactly what we have done in countless games before, we lost concentration, we let Jesus get on the end of a ball leaving his marker for dead and City won the game.

To be honest we didn't care, survival was all that mattered, in fact part of me was pleased to see City get that 100 points total, but the goal illustrated just what has been the problem all season.

So we achieved that Great Survival, something that just over two weeks ago looked highly unlikely, those that moaned about a lack of entertainment have certainly got value for their money in the final three home games of the season, personally I preferred bored sh*tless and 8th lol !

So now we are safe we need to make sure that it never happens again, those that call for the board to be sacked wholesale need to consider that on that board there are those that have nothing to do directly with football matters, to do not sack the commercial director who had quadrupled income in the last four years because we failed on the pitch that is not his fault.

No we need to look at the root cause and learn from it, remember that those responsible have delivered four straight top 8 finishes, one poor season does not mean that all is wrong, but lessons do need to be learned and perhaps changes made.

Over the next week we want to see intent from the club, we want to see they know what went wrong and how to fix it.

But for today it is all about breathing a sigh of relief and thanking God and Swansea's strikers for The Great Survival !

Photo: Action Images

Consigliere added 17:03 - May 14 San Marco puts his finger on the matter - a lack of strategic thought has put us into our current position. In some ways, finishing 17th rather than 14th or even 13th as was mathematically possible if we had sneaked a goal against City (and other results had gone our way) may turn out to be a blessing in disguise in that the Board have had (or ought to have had) an almighty shock. By the skin of our teeth we avoided the drop and they should reflect long and hard about that, putting in a long term plan to make sure this doesn't happen again. There is no room for complacency here, and if they have any sense, the Board ought to take the lesson to heart.

10

IanRC added 17:28 - May 14 Thought there were very promising signs from our two young central defenders in the last few games, particularly Hoedt. That said we could do with some experience Toure anyone ?
4

SaintBrock added 08:52 - May 15 What was it Everett Dirksen said, a billion here, a billion there and soon you're talking about real money? Obviously we are not in a position to fire 10 or 15 players and hire new ones. I no longer understand or care about how FFP works but we have a hell of a lot of deadwood in the squad that needs pruning but things may not be all doom and gloom as we move forward. We have some promising young players in the club who were ignored under previous regimes but are flourishing under Hughes for whatever reason, Bednarek, Hoedt & Hojberg amongst them. This augers well for the future if we can keep Lemina here and fit. As far as Hughes is concerned his problem is that he has a certain reputation which in many minds is negative and linked to dour, rugged long ball football. Whether this is far or not remains to be seen as he has mainly one ever been in charge of poorer clubs and players, so it may be that he had to find a style of play that was in the best interest of the survival of those clubs. Even so, at Stoke he was never very far away from Saints in our 4 seasons in the top 8 s who knows with better players at his disposal he may be capable of a more expansive, flowing style of play. At present we do not have those oalyers and there's the rub. Even if we bring in one or two we will still be stuck with cretins like Redmond, Long & Austin as the core of our attack. On the other hand can we afford yet another "fresh start" with a ne w management team? On balance we need a season of recovery and stabilisation, rebuilding slowly over the next two years before moving forward once again. Should we entrust this to Hughes? Personally I would loosen the purse strings and go for a top line manager as Newcastle did and take a five year view of our destiny.

2

SaintBrock added 08:55 - May 15 sorry chaps but I no longer care about typos or apple-spell either! :-(
0

helpineedsomebody added 09:07 - May 15 last night i saw the play off game fulham/derby the way fulham played thats the way to play football attacking & tacking risks derby were dreadful thats the way mark hughes will set up southampton to play slow /ponderous TORY football aka conservative back to ale house football i would love to see fulhams manager come here what a breath of fresh air fast attacking football

0

KriSaint added 14:11 - May 15 I am already getting pretty annoyed (very annoyed actually), that Hughes has apparently NOT already been offered the job..... He did a good temporary job! Contributed significantly to us not being relegated. Among other things by bravely chanching formation to 3-4-3 / 3-5-1-1 and use young, in-experienced Bednared as part of the solution. He knows the squad sufficiantly well enough to come up with suggestiions about what needs to be done right now. Judged by his interviews he seems very professional and quite intelligent. He even seems to be able to be a very nice person. I love his interviews actually after years of having had to listen to poor english..... Let´s forget Puel and Pellegrino - they were BOTH wrong picks. Puel and his ridiculous shuffle in team selection unsettled Fonte and that had a much bigger negative impact than many of us think!! BRING HUGHES IN NOW!

1

Blogs 31 bloggers

Manchester United Polls