When Saints hosted Manchester United at St Mary's on the final day of the season in 2014, little did the fans know that this would be the last time they would see most of these players in a Saints shirt.

When Saints hosted Manchester United on the final day of the 2013/14 it was a happy day in the sun, we were guaranteed 8th place and everyone was looking forward the following season.

But little did we know that trouble lay ahead and within a month we would again be in turmoil and that of the 11 players that would start the game, 5 of them, Artur Boruc, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Rickie Lambert & Luke Shaw would never play for the club again and on the bench Calum Chambers would play his last 10 mins in a Saints shirt as a sub & Guly Du Prado & Jos Hooiveld had already played their final game for the club.

So out of the 18 players on duty, this was farewell to the club for 8 of them it was the end of the road..

Initially this was see as a fire sale, but truth be known Adam Lallana was perhas the only one that we did not get an upgrade on in that summer, Rickie Lambert was a Saints legend, but he left at exactly the right time with his reputation intact and undamaged, and now turned 32 he would only start a further 25 League games in the the following three seasons until his retirement in 2017 with 6 goals in the process.

Saints dominated the early play in this contest between two sides who could go neither up and down from the 7th & 8th places they occupied before the game, United despite finishing 7th missing out on European Football for the first time in 25 years.

But Saints eventually took the lead against the deposed champions through Rickie Lambert, with a controversial goal.

He fired past De Gea, having earlier won an aerial battle against Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, and although United claimed Vidic had been fouled in the build-up Saints were in front.

United didn't have one shot on target during the first half but they rallied in the 2nd, After Victor Wanyama was booked for a kick on Danny Welbeck, United were presented with a free-kick 25 yards out and Mata curled the ball over the wall to leave home goalkeeper Artur Boruc with little chance of saving it.

That was it for the scoring in a game that Saints dominated in all departments, after the game the fans did the usual lap of honour all smiles and applause, but for almost half of them this was not goodbye for the summer but farewell for good.

Little did the fans realise though that turmoil was just around the corner, in his after match interview Mauricio Pochettino played down talk of Spurs interest saying that these sort of rumours were normal, but just over a fortnight later he would be unveiled as Spurs manager sparking a mass exodus of the playing squad.

Photo: Action Images

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