Of all of our last game escapes, this was probably the most nerve wracking.

Having had the fortune, or should that be misfortune to have been present at all of our last day escapes in the last decade or so, I have to say that this was more nerve wracking than all of them, except perhaps the game against Wimbledon at the Dell in 1996.

On Sunday at St Mary's though the game ebbed and flowed with the Blades refusing to lie down and die, even after they must have known that a chance of the play off had gone.

For their part every player in a Saints shirt battled for their lives, so much so, that is was easy to forget that this was a team with a patched up defence.

The supporters were tremendous, they never stopped getting behind the team, the massive roar of encouragement after United equalised in the second half was tremendous and obviously affected the team, as not only did they regain the lead within minutes, but dug in so deeply that they rarely looked like losing it again, although it did not seem like that at the time.

The final 20 minutes were agony and they got worse when Stern John was sent off, however this only seemed to spur Saints on, after scoring Nigel Pearson made a couple of substitutions in fairly quick succession and in truth, although they were needed, the first of them seemed to upset the balance of the side, Adam Lallana replacing Saganowski and seemingly dropping into midfield, the second was more straight forward, but the departure of John for an early bath, meant that we had no forward on the pitch to hold the ball up and despite the urgings of the crowd and the manager, this lead to us dropping deeper than we should have.

As the minutes ticked away the addition of tired legs didnt help either and all our players could do was sit deep and clear the ball, which they did with great aplomb, however with no holding forward it meant that United could come back at us in waves.

With the announcement of injury time, the fact that is was only three minutes seemed to spur on Saints and they got the ball down and played football, managing to get it upfield and hold it in the corner, when the ref inadvertently cut out one Sheffield pass, you knew it was going to be our day and that was what it was, the relief was clear as thousands spilled on to the pitch.

So Saints stayed up by the skin of their teeth on what was a pulsating last day of the season for the Championship, this years division couldnt have been tighter with no side gaining mathematical promotion to the very last day and five clubs contesting the final relegation spot.

The ironic thing for saints is that they found themselves in this position because they won only four of their last 25 games, an appalling record, if they had won ten of them, it wouldnt have been a total that set the World alight, however it would have been good enough to gaet us in the play off spots, so small was the gap between relegation and sixth spot.

This week will see the boardroom situation explode, after that we can concentrate on planning on next season.    

Photo: Action Images

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