After the relegation of Swansea, Stoke & West Brom amazingly Saints are now the 8th longest serving member of the current Premier League, highlighting the transient nature of the division.
Since Saints were promoted in 2012 there have been a total of 28 relegation places filled by at total of 16 different clubs which means that Saints are now the 8th longest serving club in the Premier League, although it could be said that West ham could share that position, the fact that they went up in the play offs in the year we got automatic promotion in my mind though is that we have been in the Premier League 2 weeks longer than them to be pedantic pushing them to 9th.
The big six clubs are of course ahead of Saints as are Everton, of those teams Arsenal have been there the longest having been relegated only once and that was before the First World War and they have been continuously in the top flight since 1919, Everton since the early 1950's, Liverpool since the early 60's and Manchester United and Spurs have spent over 60 years apiece continuously in the division save a season each in the 1970's when they both were relegated and spent a year in Division 2 only Chelsea and Manchester City have spent any length of time outside of the top flight in the last half century back in the 1980's & 90's and indeed only City have been outside the Premier league since it's formation in 1992.
What this tells us is that the Premier League is now only two sections, the big six and the rest, we flirted with relegation this year and so did Everton earlier in the season, the stark truth is that the big six aside any of the other clubs could go down.
So whilst Saints fans ranted and raved about whose fault it was that we found ourselves in relegation trouble and there were of course reasons, the fact is we do not have a God given right to stay in the top flight many of the clubs who have been relegated have been well run and have had money thrown at them, yet still went down.
There are 14 teams nest season who could finish 7th as Burnley did or who could just as likely go down as Soke, West Brom and Swansea clubs who have all finished in the top 10 in recent years found out.
So in six short years we have suddenly become one of the stalwarts of the Premier League and this is worrying.
It is easy to talk about ambition but the reality is that there is only a fine line between a top 10 finish or relegation, playing the wrong clubs at the right time can have a bearing on where you finish as can refereeing decisions and just plain bad luck.
If Saints had beaten Newcastle who finished in 10th and West Ham, then we could have ended the season above both, conversely if we had lost at West Brom they would have jumped above us and stayed up instead of finishing bottom.
So the message is that bad seasons are inevitable, the trick is to make sure that they happen infrequently, in truth this year is the only one out of six we have been in relegation trouble apart from our first season back and even then we were clear long before the end of the season.
This season we have had a lot of both bad luck and bad decisions, hopefully next season will not see so many, hopefully we have learn't our lessons and one of those should be realism, the Premier League is still split into two distinct sections we should be careful what we wish for !