Football is and always has been a case of ifs and buts for all clubs and players even, but this season two kicks of the ball at Wigan are really impacting on Saints.
Of course we cant go back and change what has happened in the past, but as we go into this weekend looking over our shoulder at Wigan Athletic and knowing that defeat to Chelsea could put the Lancashire club only one poit behind us with a game in hand should they win thus plunging us back into relegation trouble, the closeness of the fight down at the bottom is highlighted by the fact that if two kicks of the ball hadnt gone in at Wigan both in injury time of seperate games then things could be a lot lot different and Saints could now be all but safe.
The first was of course the injury time equaliser by Wigan against ourselves just under two months ago, if we had defended that ball and not left their man with a simple equaliser then the league table would still show Wigan third from bottom, but with a point taken off leaving them on 26 and two added to our total we would now be sitting in 13th place on 33 points, a seven point gap at this stage would be a significant total even with a game in hand, although with that game in hand for Wigan being at Man City on April 17th its debatable of how much value it will hopefully be.
But our situation could be much much better, Wigan won their last game against Newcastle 2-1 with a highly controversial last minute winner when a blatant handball was missed by the referee and Wigan took all three points, if the ref had noticed that infringement then Wigan would be another two points down and you would have to say that with them on 24 points and us on 33 it would have been all but game over and we would be looking now for a solitary victory perhaps added to a couple of draws to see us safe.
Sadly both of those two kicks did result in goals so our league position looks a lot more precarious, and the fact is we could well be only a point off the final relegation place come Saturday evening and really worrying about that game in hand.
For their part Wigan probably lost the sympathy of the country for that last minute winner against the Geordies, if they stay up by two points or less, then it will certainly being a case of cheats prospering.