Winning this game was always going to be a tough ask, we didn't achieve it in the end, but Tonda Eckert showed what a great coach he is becoming and how much his team have come on in the last six months or so.

The game itself went pretty much as most expected it to, Manchester City and their superstars dominated it, but a resilient Southampton side held firm and gave Pep Guardiola the fright of his life with 11 minutes to go.

To put this game in perspective, City's reserve goalkeeper James Trafford who played in the game and their normal first choice keeper Donnarumma, jointly cost only slightly less last summer than our entire starting line up, around £60 million.

This perhaps shows the widening chasm between the have and the have nots in English football.

For Manchester City and their fans, this game meant nothing, that was shown by their starting line up and the swathes of empty seats in their sections of the ground.

Judging by the Manchester City fans I saw before the game, there could have been even less supporting them, Paddington station seemed to be full of families with Southern accents with kids under 10 in City shirts, perhaps next year they will be there again in Manchester United or Liverpool kits, although I doubt it, those two clubs have never failed to sell their allocations.

That is why I had no sympathy for those City fans whinging on social media about the cost of going to Wembley.

But this was never going to be about the result for Southampton supporters, the odds were well and truly against us, the last 2nd tier side to win the FA Cup was West Ham in 1980, since then there have only been 3 or 4 who have reached the final.

This was always going to be about showing the country that after our disastrous season a year ago, that we had recovered from that and could give a team like City a good game.

We came loud and proud, a sea of yellow that engulfed more than half the stadium, we didn't need to wear our traditional red, there was enough of that colour in the City section.

City dominated and had most of the chances, but we thought we had scored when Leo Scienza had a trademark run through on goal and fired home, replays showed that the linesman was right to flag, he was a foot offside.

The second half went pretty much the same way as the first, at least for the first 34 minutes, City had all the ball, all the chances and it took a combination of dogged defending, good saves and good luck to keep the scores level, but we were making our own luck when Finn Azaz took the ball in his stride and curled in a shot to the top left hand corner that sent the yellow army behind the goal wild.

Surely with 11 minutes left we now had a chance, sadly though the answer came within 180 seconds when a City effort took a wicked deflection off James Bree, no blame could be attached to the defender, he had to try and block it.

Now City sensed blood and that came just 5 minutes later when Nico Gonzalez let fly from long range, rarely do those shots go in, but this was unstoppable and it summed up our luck in those last 10 minutes.

We tried for an equaliser but sadly it wasn't to be.

Quite frankly I would be embarrassed if I was a Manchester City fan, at the final whistle neither their team or fans really celebrated, a fair chunk of their supporters left the moment the final whistle went, their team half heartedly made an effort to celebrate with their fans, but their was not an ounce of enthusiasm in either party.

Just minutes after the final whistle a lone City player was being interviewed in front of a City support heading for the exits, whilst the Saints team took the applause from their own supporters.

It could not have been louder had we won, it was never about the victory, it was about making a statement on behalf of those teams that are not the likes of Manchester City etc and our manager, our players and our fans did just that.

This was about a Football Club, it's community and it's supporters, this was not celebrating failure, it was about celebrating our club 141 years of history, including it's greatest day on virtually the same spot 50 years ago.

It was highlighting what English football has become and how unless it changes, it will die, the Manchester City fans showed how indifference has now taken over, the Southampton supporters showed that the rest of us have pride in our club, pride in our city pride in ourselves.

Walking out of the ground, if you didn't know the result then you would have thought that it was Southampton that had won, City fans were hacked off that they now have to spend more money on yet another trip to Wembley, Saints supporters were loud and proud.

20 years ago City were the same as us, fans that swore they would never become Manchester United, never become arrogant and now they have become what they once despised.

So we now go again, back at Doncaster in the 3rd round, no one present there would have predicted how this season would pan out, a trip to Wembley for an FA Cup semi final and now two more games in the regular season where we have a chance to take it to the last day for Automatic promotion.

That will be a tough ask, but we are definitely in the play offs and promotion is very much in our own hands and hopefully we can have a day at Wembley again this season where we win and can truly celebrate what could be an amazing season.

All Photos Via Reuters