After Manchester United's win at Anfield on Sunday afternoon, Saints hopes of a Champions league spot decreased dramatically.
On Saturday Saints did what they had to do and got three points, sadly though as if to emphasise just how close it is in the top 7 at the moment, so did every other team apart from Liverpool and United's win at Anfield is going to make it very difficult for Saints to gain a coveted top four spot now.
Yes we are still only six points behind United in that position and eight behind Manchester City in second, but the reality is that this is a big gap when there are only eight games left and that for Saints is the reason why United's win put their top four ambitions in doubt.
Any other result at Anfield would have sufficed as then the gap would have only been four points and both teams would have been in reach and with difficult games coming up for them it would have given Saints a fighting chance, but this win makes things very very hard now although stranger things have happened.
On a bright side though it does keep Liverpool only a point ahead and with Steven Gerrard now suspended for three matches that is not going to help their cause, indeed there will be a very good opportunity to overtake them in the next round of games, on the day we travel to Everton, Liverpool are away at Arsenal in the 12.45pm game meaning that we will know exactly what we need to do when we play the Toffee's at 3pm.
The optimists will say that a Liverpool win would be better in that if we did win at Goodison it would bring us within four points of the Gunners and the Champions League would be still a possibility, but the pessimist in me says that we should be looking to overhaul Liverpool first and keep Spurs at bay and looking to secure fifth spot.
Whatever the results though this has still been our best season in terms of excitement and the quality of football in many a year and if we continue the points per game ratio then it will certainly be the best in terms of league position.