Its all rosy in the garden.

Saints face Hartlepool at St Mary's with everything rosy in the camp, indeed Saints manager Alan pardew may give a few of the team a night off now that the mid table demands of the supporters have been met.

An insider at SMS was quoted as saying

"Theres no point in anyone straining themselves for the rest of the season, we might as well concentrate on next season now and give some of those a rest who have magnificently dragged us into mid table, anyway a few of the lads have family commitments for tonight so probably cant make it anyway"

The main problem is at right back, with Wayne thomas, Jon Otsemobor and Graeme Murty all out injured, it did look as if Llloyd James might step in, but he has tickets for the Welsh National Opera at the Mayflower and has told the manager he wont be able to make it tonight.

"if we were chasing a play off spot we might have made him miss it, but with mid table secured its not a problem, its not every day you get the chance to see the WNO perform The Abduction from the Seraglio, in German with English subtitles, it would have been unfair to ask him to turn up at SMS tonight when he could have gone to see that"    

Other than who will play right back, Alan Pardew has the luxury of a full squad, although a couple of the forwards may only be able to play the first half as they have tickets for the 9.15 showing of Shutter island at Leisure World.

With nothing to play for the Saints crowd tonight will accept that the players dont have to go at full tilt, especially with Wembley only days away, therefore it should be a party atmosphere at the game, although club officials are urging fans to save their voices for Sunday so loud singing will be discouraged.

Many business's in Southampton are also benefitting from tonight, John Lewis in West Quay reports higher than average sales of steam irons as supporters prepare to iron the creases out of their new replica shirts this evening in preparation for the big day.

Back at St Mary's its all smiles, Nicola Cortese is considering whether the team should be honoured with an open top bus tour of the City, not for Wembley of course but for the league form, although we dont have access to a top knotch translator we are assured this is a fairly accurate translation of what he would like to say.

" Alan Pardew has pulled out all the stops, we expected nothing more than mid table come the end of this season, it was beyond our wildest dreams that we would achieve that with 10 games to spare and have the luxury of those last games meaning, how you English say, sod all !.

If we can get the bus tour out of the way in early April we can perhaps play the youth team in the last couple of games and have an early finish to prepare for next season's certain promotion winning season."

So there you have it, with everything rosy at St Mary's its back to the studio.      

Photo: Action Images

Swansea City Polls