The relief flooded around St Mary's after the win over Crystal Palace but the Saints supporters had done their bit in making sure that the team stayed positive.

The longer the game against Crystal Palace went on last night the more there was an opportunity for the crowd's mood to change and an atmosphere to prevail that would not be conducive to Saints being able to win the game.

Despite the fact that we are in the top six of the Premier League and enjoying our best season for near on three decades this season has seen a strange attitude in some supporters where they need to have a scapegoat, Pelle was of course the first this season and he was ironically cheered everytime he won a header in the first home game of the season, but at times we have seen Shane Long, Sadio Mane, Dusan Tadic and now full circle back to Pelle as the butt of certain elelements of the fans ire.

Therefore I went to last nights game with trepidation especially after hearing the team and that Pelle was named in it, I feared for the atmosphere if Saints struggled to score.

The last time I can remember such a tense atmosphere with the ability for it to turn nasty was back in December 2009, that was the season that we were relegated from the Champions ship and can be considered to be the most difficult ant turbulent in our entire history.

On the 20th December Nottingham Forest visited and due to a combination of cheap tickets 26k were in attendance some 11k more than the previous home game, Saints were fourth from bottom out of the relegation zone and four points clear of Forest who were third from bottom, Saints had pulled up the table and at this stage even with a team of kids and free transfers looked capable of surviving a tough season.

So if Saints had beaten Forest they would have been 7 points clear, however the crowd turned when Forest scored just before half time and the atmosphere was such that hey never stood a chance of winning the game and indeed from then on the seasons was a disaster on the pitch.

So strangely although instead of a Championship relegation battle its a fight for the Champions league placing it was a similar mood at the start of the game at St Mary's last night after abuse hurled at our players by Saints fans at West Brom.

Unlike 2009 though it was a case of instead of the more casual supporters being in attendance, they gave this one a miss meaning that perhaps only the more die hard's turned up in the 28, 351 and that meant that they backed the team.

So despite the fact that Saints failed to score till the 82nd minute the crowd did not turn ugly they kept with the team, perhaps in a strange way this was helped by the Palace supporters, their Ultra's kept up a barrage of noise throughout the game meaning that although the Saints fans were outsung they had to try and match the visiting contingent and that benefited Saints as the crowd stayed with them and didn't get on anyones backs.

Of course it wasn't perfect and i would be lying if i said it was one of those magical nights were the atmosphere was brilliant, but the main thing was that the Saints supporters kept backing their team and did not hurl abuse at certain players .

That would have been easy to do, Pelle the latest scapegoat could not seem to be able to buy goal, but he never hid and never gave up trying and the crowd realised this and he was given a good ovation when he went off and none of it was sarcastic, most Saints fans know that players need backing not abuse.

This meant that the atmosphere was condusive to a Saints win and when Palace hit a post some sensed that it was perhaps going to be our day after all.

The goal came late but lifted that tension and the crowd carried the team home to three deserved points and we had got the monkey off our back in terms of our goal drought.

There are still things not quite right going forward but hopefully now we can get back to scoring goals, we are still very tight at the back and although the last six games have only seen 2 goals scored, we have only conceded 4, seven points from those six games isn't great but the win last night means that we are still in the mix.

So with ten games left the team need the fans to stay with the side in each and every game, if we want to achieve our aim of European Qualification there is no room for the type of abuse that was witnessed up at West Brom and has been simmering for a while, we need everyone backing the players and like last night if they can't say anything positive saying nothing negative.

As I said it is a strange situation we are in our best position for 30 years yet some are not satisfied, lets do our bit to make sure that we are very satisfied come May.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters

Recent Stories