Saints season goes from one end of the spectrum to the other, after a period of game after game squeezed into a short period, starting with the trip to Watford they only have two games in a month.

The expectation of the last seven months is now over and although its been a great ride, it has ultimately brought disappointment alongside some great times and games, so now it is time to get back to the reality of the Premier League and to look to what we can achieve this season.

I said at the start of the season that a top ten finish would be acceptable and that would signify our best ever run of league seasons in football, we have never before managed four of these in a row.

Now although that is not the ending we dreamed of this season, we have to accept that if we can achieve it it is still a great step forward for the football club and a solid foundation to build on for next season.

But the first step in doing that will be beating Watford and in doing so leapfrogging them and with the possibility of sitting in 9th position when the weekend is over with a game in hand.

Ironically last season's charge to six place started by beating Watford at home and now we have to repeat the feat, this time at Vicarage Road.

The rumour is that Fraser Forster will now be rested due having carried an injury these last months and Mouez Hassan come in for his debut after signing on loan from Nice.

Then the second question will be whether Martin Caceres will come into the team, he has now been at the club full time for three weeks with assorted sessions before that, so you have to assume that he is nearing fitness.

I would hope that he would come in to the team to add some experience and quality i the centre of defence, no disrespect to Yoshida and Stephens, who at Wembley pulled out the stops and had decent games, but the reality was that ultimately the second two United goals saw men unmarked in the penalty box and that was a lapse in concentration on each occasion that we cannot afford to keep doing.

Other than that that I would expect the rest of the team to be pretty much the midfield and attack that started at Wembley, although Claude Puel has other options that he may want to utilise, not from a point of rotating the team, but he has the quality to use different players for different situations, would anyone question Shane Long or Boufal coming in for Tadic or Redmond for instance.

So apart from the centre of defence Puel now has a squad that can if used properly go on to have a run in this Premier League and push us into the top ten, we will now find out if he has learnt his lessons from his rotation policy earlier in the season and that sometimes a team has to be about finding and keeping momentum.

If Puel has done that then there is no reason why we cannot have a great end to the season, perhaps it won't bring us the European football that we crave, but it willbe another step forward and a foundation to build on for next season, where if we can keep the squad together we can again continue to make Saints a force to be reckoned with.

Photo: Action Images

highfield49 added 09:56 - Mar 4 Yup, I'd question Long or Boufal coming in for Tadic or Redmond Nick. No problem with them coming off the bench if needed but I thought the combination of JWP, Tadic, Redmond and Gabbiadini in attack was the best I've seen us play up front in a long time. Caceres can be a threat from dead ball situations that neither Yoshi or Jack have produced so I'd like to see him in the line up. Love to get three points and build on the spirit shown at Wembley.

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