I THINK as we said only last week, big things could be happening with Saints, going into the FA Cup semi-final and our league position more or less safe.

But suddenly, we’re out of the cup after losing to Leicester and even the manager and the players have admitted it wasn’t a good game and we could’ve done better.

In a way, it was good that they could come good only three days’ later in a league game at Tottenham, only to lose that as well. And no chance of making up for it until our next fixture, which believe it or not isn’t until nine days’ time.

Going back to the league incidentally, I’ve never been too sure about VAR. I think if that hadn’t been in use on Wednesday, the penalty would never have been given, which cost us the game.

However, it is now a test for the manager and the players to give 110 per cent in the remaining six games.

It doesn’t look as though supporters could be at the ground, which to be fair, certainly didn’t help us in the two games we’ve just lost. As I’ve said many a time, support in football is the most important part of it.

This became obvious to the six billionaires, whose pictures were all over the media in the last week, when it came out they had been planning to have a European Super League.

Fair enough, if it was in Europe and didn’t affect our game.

But of course, it involved six of what they thought were our biggest clubs in Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City.

And the plan was that they would only play it in midweek, trying to say you can still carry on with domestic games on Saturdays. But that’s rubbish. In any season, a lot of club games are played in midweek, they may be cup replays or games which have been cancelled for the weather etcetera.

But what they did learn, even though they might have more money than all the supporters put together, the supporters are more important in football than them or their money is.

Way, way back, my wife and I, on Sunday mornings would go off with our two sons Chris and Sean to Tyro League games, where they played for Sarisbury Sparks. They would be on different pitches and what made the day more than anything for the youngsters, nine, 10, 11-year-olds, was the fact that different to kicking the ball around in the street or at school, there was what they would call a crowd.

It may have been only their parents, but that meant there could be anything from 20 to 30 to 40 people. That created an atmosphere and helped them become better and give more effort because of the encouragement coming from the people on the sidelines.

Multiply that by thousands and of course, as I’ve often said, even though The Dell got smaller and smaller crowd wise, the atmosphere our supporters gave to the team was often worth a goal before the start. I could compare it to support some of the bigger clubs got at their bigger grounds.

That became more and more obvious this week when the billionaires were exposed as having been planning this Super League. The main people in the game are not them, the owners, or even the players. It’s the supporters when it comes to professional, competitive football.

Although they rightly apologised and came away from their idea, rest assured it will stay with them for the rest of their time at the English clubs and I’m not sure they’ll be spotted in the directors’ boxes for quite a while, if ever again.

Whilst over the years financial things have changed dramatically, mainly because of television coverage, our Premier League games can be watched just about anywhere around the world at the weekends. That brings the money in and of course has made player salaries at the top level enormously high.

But the way the supporters have come out so quickly and strongly proves that even though games at the moment are carrying on without crowds in the grounds, that will not go on forever. And if people decide that they don’t want to watch some of these games and it upsets the TV people who obviously go on numbers, that could be the end of any ideas that the rich men have of changing what has been shown as the best league around the whole world. That of course is why we have got so many players and coaches coming into our country for quite a while now.

It reminds everyone how good our top league is. Another good example was the fact that Arsenal were playing Fulham on Sunday, who are favourites at present to be relegated, and they only managed to snatch a draw right at the end. That’s how strong our top flight is and the good clubs in the flight below banging on the door to get up again.

So let’s go on with it. Let’s hope crowds can come back in again, but it’s a great reminder to everyone that even though they may not be in the stadiums, they still have a voice. And even though they want to beat each other’s teams on Saturdays, on occasions like this, they all pulled together and made it a totally one-sided response.