Saints In Europa League Group Stages As Manchester United Do Us A Favour

They laboured a bit but eventually Manchester United did Saints a favour and beat Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final to mean that we now start in the group stages of the Europa League.

Ex Saints Jason Puncheon scored what looked to be a late winner at Wembley before Manchester United equalised and eventually won FA Cup after extra time to send Saints into the group stages of the Europa League.

It was a final of plenty of chances but of poor quality football with Palace employing the tactic of sitting back and trying to go on the break and get set pieces and United unable to produce much of note to break them down.

Morgan Schneiderlin was an unused substitute in the game which finished 2-1 after extra time with the only real flash of inspiration being Wayne Rooney who made a brilliant run for United's equaliser and looked the only United player with any real spark.

Although United won the trophy it is still questionable that it might have saved Louis Van Gaal's job, the performance was poor and lacked spark and inspiration.

But Saints and indeed West Ham United did not care, the result sends Saints into the group stages of the Europa League and the Hammers into the 3rd qualifying round.

For Saints it is a distinct advantage now not having to play qualifying rounds, if United had lost then Saints competitive season like the one just gone would have started in the final week of July and to get through to the group stage we would have had to play four Europa League games in a around four weeks.

Now we will not be in Europa League action till mid September meaning that we can prepare for the coming season in a proper manner with a spread out pre season and our players coming back from the Euro's will have time to rest before being thrown into important games.

So thank yo Manchester United although after their win I felt strangely dirty and unclean after cheering them on and had to take a shower !

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