Most of the talk in the media this season has been about the triumphs of Leicester City and quite rightly so, but whilst the press have also salivated over Spurs & West Ham, Saints have been completely ignored.

Leicester City have received full credit for their Premier League win and that is only right and fair, but as the Foxes stormed to the title, the media also salivated over Tottenham Hotspur and to a lesser extent West Ham United.

To the London based media for most of the season they were waiting for what they saw as the the inevitable blow up of Leicester and Spurs glorious charge to their first League title in over half a century, as back up they had West Ham United, for some reason the sports media has a disproportionate amount of journalists who support West Ham to the size of the Hammers actual fanbase and that showed in the way West Ham were betrayed as the plucky East End club who have always played the game in the right way and were now going to their destiny in the Olympic Stadium.

These were the two stories that the media wanted to right although eventually they had to grit their teeth, stop patting Leicester on the head in a patronising manner and acknowledge what really happened.

Of course the reality now is that both Spurs and West Ham choked, the North London Soccer Chickens became the first team to finish third in a two horse race and the Hammers were overtaken by Saints on the final day of the season.

But in what has been an exciting season overall, little or no credit has been given to Saints and just what they have actually achieved, of course at the start of the season the press were quite happy to write us off after we lost a couple of key players again and the Daily Mail as usual liked to whip up a story every now and then about meltdown's both on and off the pitch.

But as the media praised Spurs and West Ham to the hilt for their flowing football and prayed for a Spurs title triumph and a West Ham top four finish, Ronald Koeman and his team quietly got on with the job and come the final reckoning I would say that Saints are the story of the season after Leicester City, not that anyone in the media has noticed.

All the headlines have been about Mauricio Pochettino and how he has finally turned Spurs into a club that challenges for the League, all the praise for Harry Kane and Dele Alli, no one wanted to point out that Spurs were lucky that virtually all of the potential top four challengers were having problems, that being the case with Spurs having the luck they did with injuries and suspensions, the fact that they still could not win the title is more an indictment on their season than a feather in their cap for trying so hard.

The media have failed to give Saints credit for the fact that whilst Spurs initially looked like they might catch Leicester and finally spluttered to an embarrassing ending, Saints came up on the rails and that in the second half of the season only Leicester gained more points than Saints.

In the first 19 games Leicester had 39 points meaning that in the second half of the season they gained 42 points, next up is Saints with 39 points whilst Spurs managed only 35 and West Ham a mere 33.

This perhaps emphasises just how well Saints did in the second half of the season, Leicester stormed to the title, yet Saints only gained three less points.

And those three points in some respects cost Saints dearly, for if they had gained them in a win at Manchester City then it would have been Saints and not City in the final Champions league spot, if that had happened then perhaps the press would have had no choice but to look towards St Mary's and given us credit.

So perhaps now as the season quietens down, the media will look at Saints and acclaim just what we have achieved in the past three seasons, each of which has had its issues of one sort of another, we have had more adversity than perhaps any other club in that time, yet we have still managed to overcome it and move forward.

So how good is Saints season ?

Well firstly in the Premier League era it is of course our best ever finish, whether we end it 5th or 6th after tonight and it means we have finished in the top 8 of the top flight for three consecutive seasons, a feat only achieved once in our history before, that in the Keegan era of 1980-82.

Our best ever top flight finish is 2nd in 83/84 but after that it is the 5th place of the following year, so if we do hold on to 5th this will equal our second best ever league finish and of course 6th will equal our 3rd best finish of 80/81.

The 63 points gained is again the best in the Premier League era in the top flight, back in the 80's there were 42 games played in a season so to compare we have to average it on a points per game basis.

83/84 understandably still comes out top with an average of 1.83 per game, but after that this is virtually identical to season 80/81 where the ratio then was 1.66 per game with this season just being a fraction under that.

So the message here is that this is as good a run as we have ever had in our history in terms of not only where we have finished but in consistency in doing so, if we finish in the top ten next season that would set a new club record.

Then there is what Ronald Koeman has done for this football club, no other manager in the Premier League has probably come in to a club with the squad being so decimated and with morale so low because of that.

The Dutchman has rebuilt the squad almost completely since the one that ended the season two years ago, firstly in that major rebuild in the summer of 2014 and secondly last summer where he had to lose more key players again and replace them.

So just what he has done is minor miracle and should not be underestimated, although there are few in the press that would give him too much credit.

But take a look at the League table, apart from the fact that we were the second best team in the second half of the season, there is the actual finishing points total, we finished 3 points above Liverpool who have spent far more than us and taken four of our squad in the past two years, we may finish equal with Manchester united who have again with far more resources than us spent much much more including two of our squad over the past two years.

We are only three points behind Manchester City a club with unlimited resources and who will take the final Champions League spot, that is how near we came to truly hitting the big time.

We are only seven points behind Spurs who have tried to unsettle our players and indeed did so at the start of the season with Victor Wanyama a period that cost us dearly both in terms of the Europa League and Premier League points.

We are only eight points behind Arsenal in second place, again a club with massive resources and the ability to make big signings including some of our squad in recent years.

This is the magnitude of what Southampton Football Club has achieved this season, every Saints supporter should be proud and virtually every member of the national media should be ashamed for their inability to see past the big clubs and of course Tottenham and West Ham.

Photo: Action Images

simmo400 added 11:31 - May 17 Whats new then ????? Saints need to match Koemans ambition or loose him...........thats the main agenda in the next few weeks. Lets see if we can.
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helpineedsomebody added 11:34 - May 17 in the ICONIC words of ricky lambert I OWE THIS CLUB EVERTHING this is what surporting the saints means to me
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SaintNick added 11:43 - May 17 Ronald Koeman has not said match my ambition of lose me , what he has said is that he will be here next year as he is under contract, but after that and any new contracts he wants to see that the club ambition matches his own. Problem is we know that Koemans ambition is to manage Barcelona, can we match that
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codge added 11:47 - May 17 Very good analysis of our great season, l am afraid it has always going to be this way, it's never how well we played to win it is more that the other team had a bad day. And it has been that way for years,the main thing to remember is that we know how good Saints are and who gives a hoot what some twit who has no clue outside of his little bubble of knowledge of what it takes to be a unbiased reporter. I for one am glad l have a great team to follow and couldn't care less what someone else fails to notice. COYR.

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Sanguin added 11:55 - May 17 I love this line, I'm going to start using it on everyone I know who supports Tottenham: "The North London Soccer Chickens became the first team to finish third in a two horse race".
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squidofdespair added 12:12 - May 17 It is a great line and the article is full of good stats. One important one that was missed is there is a paragraph above with no less than 61 words without a single item of punctuation. Hilarious. Squid almost couldn't hold my breath long enough to read it. But the piece is bang on Nick. It bugs squid every Sunday when the papers pretty much ignore us. We beat a top 6 club and its all about why they lost. Jam pockets and wizards' sleeves, the lot of them. NB: squid's punctuation is also poor and talking in the third person is lunacy too. It takes one to know one sir. Please keep up the good work next season.

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SaintNick added 12:31 - May 17 61 words equals my best ever punctuationless run of 2007/08 when I was apoplectic with rage over a defeat at Sheffield Wednesday. In terms of consecutive punctuation runs, I have achieved 50 words or more in a run of articles on 5 occasions 9 times with 45 or more and 40 plus on 17 occasions. In terms of typos 13 mistakes in an article was my best in 2011/12, this season I have averaged only .75 typos per piece, something that no one on here has given me credit for, preferring to look at the London based clubs web articles as the standard to aspire to.

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halftimeorange added 12:41 - May 17 The media will have it that the Saints board is unambitious rather than credit the board with running the club on a sensible business footing. What the board could say to Koeman is "Give us another three years with the caveat that if Barcelona come calling then you leave at the end of that season with our blessing". The board can't compete with Barca for Koeman's affections but Ron seems to be a reasonable man and surely he would accept a reasonable proposal, all things considered.

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SaintNick added 12:48 - May 17 I think he will, its the media twisting words not Koeman who has been consistent all along that he will stay for another season and now the real talks will begin now its finished, bear in mind that he is now in a stronger bargaining position for his own salary with another season in Europe than he would have been a month ago
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SaintNick added 12:48 - May 17 I think he will, its the media twisting words not Koeman who has been consistent all along that he will stay for another season and now the real talks will begin now its finished, bear in mind that he is now in a stronger bargaining position for his own salary with another season in Europe than he would have been a month ago
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froggysaint added 12:50 - May 17 The irony was not lost on me that Spurs (More chicken than Nando's) success was largely built on the improvement in their leaky defense of last season thanks to the unprincipled way that they behaved (again) in the poaching of Toby Alderweireld. On top of our other injury issues at the back, It left the gaping hole that was only filled with the eventual arrival of the truly excellent Virgil. We had Maya starting every game for goodness sake !! This was what damaged us so much in the early season. I'm sure you all noticed who the Spurs fans voted player of the season ? Indeed; step forward Toby Alderweireld.

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Number_58 added 13:16 - May 17 I'd imagine most of you lot were in the pub after Sunday's game and so probably missed Stan Collymore's bizarre comments on TalkSport that it had been a disappointing season for Southampton. Mind you, if someone had told us back in August that we would finish 18 points behind Collymore's old team Leicester, then we probably would have considered it a bloody disastrous season.

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BaselSaint added 13:28 - May 17 Look how long it took the pundits and the press to give proper credit to Leicester. There is a bias against non-London, non-Mega buck teams. We would have to win the PL to get any proper respect or credit. All they can talk about is who will leave. I just ignore them.
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corkcitysaint added 13:34 - May 17 In a selfish kind of way, I don't mind us being overlooked. It keeps the vultures from circling over-head, eyeing up the squad as to who to pick off next. As it stands, the media are already trying to pry RK away. It's frustrating. If we can be left to our own devices, keep our squad and keep going, who knows what we can achieve. Instead, it's always talk of us selling out best players, replacing, look at the players they've sold in the last few years etc etc. Why don't the media try to rumour monger and split up other teams?? But yes, we had a great season. Pity about our usual Christmas blip though.

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Consigliere added 13:50 - May 17 I'm completely with Cork City on this one. It is better to fly under the radar and avoid the attentions of the London-centric media as far as possible. Rather that than have their gloating and envious eyes on anything and everything we achieve. I know its very frustrating that the Saints get far less print and other media space than other teams, but there is no point in complaining about it. Most journalists are basically (a) lazy and (b) uninterested in anything bar a story that sells. Since London and Manchester are the biggest markets into which they can peddle their vacuous and self-serving nonsense, it is little surprise that its the teams that are (notionally) linked to these geographical areas that interest them. Its as pointless as complaining about the weather to object to this.

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SanMarco added 14:12 - May 17 I agree with Basel, Cork City and Consig - no point complaining and it is perhaps better to fly under the radar. Also, to be fair, at that moment when the horses were all round Tattenham corner and the commentator's voice was getting all excited for the final couple of furlongs we were quite a way back. We never looked like winning it (Leicester/Spuds) or coming in top 4 (Man C/Manure/Wet Spam) so it is sort of understandable that our late charge to 5th/6th wasn't the biggest talking point. Also I was looking forward to adapting Ron Atkinson's 4th in a 2 horse race quote, originally about manure, to fit the Spuds but Nick got there first! Given the great job that is done on this site I think I can also forgive a lack of punctuation - we always know what he means, even if we don't always agree with it...

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aceofthebase added 14:45 - May 17 And finally a big vote of thanks to all the management, the Katrina family, Ralph Kruegar, Les Reed, the staff in the offices, The training and physio staff, the gatekeepepers and all the stewards (apart from the one that nearly eveicted my son during the Liverpool match) oh of course the players and the wonderful supporters. Thanks Nick for keeping these pages flowing Can't wait for next season!

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DPeps added 15:40 - May 17 Agree with those saying that keeping under the media radar is only a good thing. And yes Squid, we need more of us talking in the third person, so sayeth Peps
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SaintNick added 16:14 - May 17 Keeping under the radar is fine, but the reality is that football clubs these days dont rely on media headlines and reports, they will do their own research, media headlines are there for the supporters who get carried away by them, a football club will do what it thinks right regardless of that.
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Whatsforpud added 17:15 - May 17 When the media do talk about us, it's only tends to be about Koeman, and not about the team itself. The only time our players are mentioned is in a negative way (is he off at the end of the season?) rather than talk about the style of play, or the individual qualities of players.
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saintmark1976 added 18:24 - May 17 Try not to make a worry of it Nick. At the end of the day the table does not lie. Sales of newspapers are declining rapidly and before long they will be all but forgotten as a form of journalism. In any event who cares what opinions the Daily Fail and similar papers express.After all the only people who read them are the "the hard of thinking".
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SaintNick added 22:14 - May 17 Its not just the newsprint they can only put out an issue once a day, its more the online media
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