A DELIGHTED Gordon Strachan has hailed his players after they achieved Saints' highest league position for 13 years.

A 1-0 win at Manchester City in the last ever game at Maine Road was enough to secure eighth in the final Premiership table and the Saints boss insisted: "We have got better from last year.

"I'm really delighted - we've achieved more than last year in terms of getting more points, finishing higher up, qualifying for Europe with a couple of the lads having forced their way into the international squads.

"So it's been a good season. What we wanted to do was get better but, in some games, we achieved fantastic levels.

"But in the last five or six weeks, we had been disappointing and this was the last chance to make up for that.

"I'm still in a job at the end of the season - that's the main thing!

"Most managers will say without injuries we could be higher and you have to be remember we have had two front-line strikers out all season.

"Marian Pahars was our top goal-scorer last season and Agustin Delgado is a record signing. So missing those two would cause any club a problem."

When told it was Saints highest position since 1989-90, Strachan smiled and added: "That's good, it's another thing we've achieved."

After a strangely feeble performance against Arsenal in the week, Saints were back to their gritty best against City, with Michael Svensson's headed goal the difference between the teams.

Strachan said: "We needed to put in a performance that said we are hard to beat. People wanted to know what was our mindset and we had to go into a lot of tackles to win the game.

"We had one or two knocks but I thought we better do that.

"It wasn't the prettiest game, that's for sure, but we've decided we have had enough of being unfortunate losers away from home and people telling me 'you pass the ball well'.

"I think you can see by the side we had out that we tried to make sure we didn't lose the game.

"It was a big day for Manchester City - and quite rightly so - they've got to celebrate, Maine Road has been a magnificent place for many years.

"But we didn't want to enjoy their free-flowing football, we wanted to make sure we gave ourselves the platform to win the game.

"I'm delighted for Paul Jones as the last game he let in six and a clean sheet is good for us before the Cup final. Michael Svensson was excellent, although both the centre-backs did well and my two strikers for the first hour did fantastically well."