Saints are effictively one point away from safety after Aston Villa's defeat at home to Chelsea on Saturday lunchtime.
Saints travel up to Sunderland knowing that a draw will mean that barring a catastrophe at home to Stoke the following weekend their Premier League safety will be assured.
As it stands at the moment Wigan can get 41 points and of course another point will only give us 40, however due to Villa playing at Wigan next weekend, both of them would then be able to get "more" points than us, I emphasise the word "more" as of course we would be level with Villa on 40 if we were to return today with that point.
If we did, then Wigan would need to get the maximum six points from their final two games to overtake us and in achieving that they would of course have to beat Aston Villa meaning that we would stay above the midlands club on goal difference, assuming of course that we didnt waste that advantage, that would mean that Villa's defeat at Wigan would need to be at least 12 goals better than ours at home to Stoke, effectively if they lost 1-0, we would need to suffer a 13-0 defeat to Stoke, in reality it wont happen, touch wood.
Of course this is the most complicated way of staying up before the final day, the simplest way would just to be to beat Sunderland and damn their impudence as a famous quote from Blackadder once said ( The damn you impudence bit I'm on about as far as Im aware Sunderland werent about in the 16th Century) that would ensure that not only would we stay up but wouldnt suffer the ignomity of doing so by the smallest of margins table wise by finishing fourth from bottom.
But of course we and other clubs could all be put out of our misery on Tuesday night should Wigan lose or fail to beat Arsenal, again given our superior goal difference over the FA Cup Winners it would need a 12 goal turnaround.
All in all we are only one step from safety, so near yet so far, sadly as we have been for the last few weeks.