Saints will be playing for a whopping £5 million pounds potential prize money when they take on Stoke City on Sunday afternoon at St Mary's.
Ironically enough Stoke City themselves are also in the same position as Saints on Sunday, if they win they could finish tenth, however a defeat could also see them fourth from bottom, the difference in income from those finishes is immense, 10th place will net £8,305,682, whilst 17th will only earn £3,020,248, thats a difference of £5,285,434 or in plain english well over five and a quarter million quid.
So there is plenty at stake from Sunday's game, around £755k a place
in simple terms, meaning that neither Tony Pulis or Mauricio Pochettino will be able to rest on their laurels and perhaps experiment, much talk this week has been about investment to push Saints into challenging for the Champions League places, well 5 million quid can buy you a pretty decent quality Premier league player.
So there is plenty to play for on Sunday although I still think the kids in the park on Saturday will be dreaming of scoring the winning goal for Saints and walking up to the Royal Box to pick up the FA Cup rather than winning £5 million for Saints, but it does go to show what the Premier league is all about, for anyone bar a handful of clubs its about winning money not trophies.
Of course this is the extreme case, chances are that even if they lose Saints wont finish fourth from bottom, but there is a miniimum of £755k on the game in that beat Stoke and we jump above them and in doing so will probably leapfrog Newcastle and Norwich who have very tough games, that means that a win for us is worth at a minimum 2 1/4 million quid and even that isnt something to be sniffed at.
So if things are getting a bit tough against the Potters dont forget to stir our boys on by perhaps waving a fiver or a tenner at them, or if your feeling very rich or we are really struggling perhaps £20 or £50 notes.