A disappointing day at the office for Saints as they went down tamely to a Brighton side who wanted it more, this was perhaps the worst defeat of the last two months given that we had almost a full squad to pick from.
This was meant to be the day that now we had many of our injured players back fit again that we put any lingering relegation fears to bed, from this perspective it was the most disappointing of the last two months, even worse than Manchester United, in that game we had every excuse in the book for the heavy defeat, but at St Mary's against the Seagulls we had none really, we just didn't turn up.
In some respects a draw would have been a fair result certainly the stats for the game were fairly evenly matched although we did have the lion's share of possession, but the difference was that Brighton as a team wanted it, they stepped up a gear where we seemed to have very little impetus until the final minutes when we suddenly realised that we were going to lose.
Up to that point we seemed to be strolling around confident that we would score at will.
The game started badly for us with Brighton looking lively and when Dunk got a free header he powered it home in the bottom corner, not many headers of that power and in that spot get saved.
But Saints kept passing and when on 26 minutes we were back on level terms when Che Adams fired home from close range after a well worked move you felt there would be only one winner, but Brighton might not score man, but they don't concede either.
They got to the break all square but it was Saints on top.
The Seagulls were dangerous on the break throughout the game and Fraser Forster had to be in good form on several occasions, however 10 minutes after the restart he could do little as a lovely well worked move saw us fail to pick up Trossard and straight through he finished with aplomb.
Now Brighton has something to hold and their spirits were up, they worked like trojans and never stopped running.
We in comparison were pedestrian we didn't take the game to them enough, we continued to pass around the back and midfield as if we were 3-0 up and seeing the game out, we needed to up the intensity and push the visitors on to the back foot, but we never seemed to be able to do that.
We thought that we could pass our way to a win, but against a side like Brighton you have to bombard them, put them under pressure, but we never did.
Too many players seemed to be playing at half pace, didn't seem to want to get out of first gear, Nathan Tella barely touched the ball, we needed to get him running at them as he did against Sheffield United, but we never did, we had our chances in the second half, but they were too few.
In the preview i remarked that it would be hard to tell who should partner Adams, should it e Minamino or Tella, we made the wrong choice Tella might have been better coming from the wing where he could get the ball and run at players, too often he was isolated.
As the game went on we seemed to run out of steam, there was an excuse for those who were just back from injury, but not for the rest of the side, perhaps two players could walk off the pitch feeling satisfied they had earned their wages, James Ward Prowse and Che Adams.
In contrast Brighton had an entire side that put in a shift, not least ex Saint Adam Lallana who pulled the strings from the midfield.
But this game is done and dusted now, a win even a draw would have been good enough to see off those lingering injury doubts, but the truth is our position did not get any worse, Fulham started the weekend 7 points behind us and they finished it with the same gap, but one game less to close it.
All that matters now is the game against Bournemouth this weekend, win that and we are in an FA Cup semi final and we then concentrate on three games against sides around us, games that we can get the points needed to banish those niggling worries.
Fulham host Leeds United on Friday and Brighton are at home to Newcastle on Saturday, we will have to sit back and hope those games go our way, but after next week with hopefully Danny Ings and Theo Walcott back we will have firepower that was missing on Sunday and get back to winning ways.