What a disappointing night for Saints as they went out of the Europa League with a whimper not a bang.
For some reason this never felt like it was going to be one of those magical nights, back in the 1990's when we fought some epic relegation battles you sensed that the crowd was completely behind the team and would lift them to great things in certain games.
That feeling wasn't present when we took on Manchester United in the final game of 2005 and were relegated and it was not there last night when we took on Be'er Sheva.
With 20 minutes to go Saints were in command of the tie and heading for the last 32 but you could hear a pin drop in the ground at times, too many of the crowd seemed not to be there to roar the team on, but to pick on certain individuals.
I cant complain about the team that Claude Puel picked, yes I would have preferred to see Fonte in instead of Yoshida, but the Japanese defender did not let us down.
What cost us this European campaign was the sub standard teams that we put out in both Milan and Prague where we lost by a single goal where in both games we deserved at least a point.
If we had gained just one point from those two games then we would be through to the next round now.
Saints did not play well last night, but they did not play badly either, they attacked well but the issue was creating and taking chances and the longer we failed to score and the quieter the crowd go apart from moans and groans you sensed that the visitors were looking for the one decent chance they got.
When it came in the 78th minute they took it and from the reation of the crowd you would have thought that it was fatal, many standing up and leaving and others standing up and abusing.
We have come back from two down before, yes it was disappointing , but at that moment the team needed something to lift them and they did not get that from the crowd, there were 12 minutes of normal time left and you could assume at least 3 of injury time, if the crowd had rose as one and shown that they were behind their team then perhaps things could have been different.
It turned ot that they so nearly where, with half the crowd already out of the ground Virgil Van Dijk fired home, this inspired the die hards remaining who found their voices and Yoshida almost heaed home in the dying seconds to create one of those special nights.
But it was not to be and losing Charlie Austin in the first half did not help, Saints had plenty of opportunities but too rarely did they truly trouble the keeper and too often they got into good positions bt did not find the final ball or cross.
For the fans it was perhaps down to perception as to why we lost, they perceived that Josh Sims is the hero and his swashbuckling styl was driving us forward and they perceived that Nathan Redmond was terrible.
The truth is far different, Sims did not have a good game, too often he lost the ball and created problems for us with Be'er Sheva breaking and in the main he failed to beat his man and put a ball in.
Redmond on the other hand although not having a brilliant game, was good up to the point of delivery, he seemed to be able to take on and beat his man, but too often he too failed to deliver although he did have a decent effort on target in the first half that the keeper had to deal with and push round for a corner.
But the crowd perceived both players differently, Sims of course is very young and with little experience, his time will come and I don't want to make this about him, but it is important to emphasise that if sections of the crowd had perhaps concentrated more on cheering the team on insted of getting on Redmond's back, then it might not have changed the result, but it would have had a better chance of doing so.
This seems like the end of the World, it was hard to take, but we have to look at reality, we are still handily placed in the League, we are n the semi finals for the League Cup and this is as good a start to the season as last year.
There is stil a lot to play for, there is still a lot to be happy about, so do we as supporters want to see the team do well, or do we prefer to get on their backs and see the season peter out.
I know what I want and that is success and I know that supporting the team on the pitch gives us a better chance of achieving it than getting on their backs.
This is a set back, a big disappointing set back, but we still march on and we still have a lot to play for.