Southampton FC on course for Champions League place after 1-0 over Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road

If anybody wants a bit of context surrounding Saints’ season thus far, consider this: with 14 games to go Ronald Koeman was asked if his side could challenge Manchester City and Chelsea for the Premier League title.

It feels a bit like we have slipped into some sort of parallel universe.

We heard those same questions earlier in the season, and remarked upon how incredible it was. Now though things have changed.

The big clubs, the neutrals, the pundits, are just about finally realising they have to stop patronising little old Southampton and take them seriously.

Everybody who watches them regularly knows this is no fluke, that Saints are where they are in the table on merit.

But still surprisingly few outsiders have woken up to the fact that this is real.

• QPR 0 Saints 1: Picture gallery

Now the questions to Koeman are genuine, rather than tongue in cheek.

The other sides are starting to worry about Saints now, have no fear on that one.

We are not hearing other managers of rival clubs overlook them any longer.

They know Saints are in there for the long haul.

Whether they will quite make it in the end we shall wait and see, but they are going to be up there fighting right into the final weeks of the season.

To ensure that was the case, they really needed a positive result at QPR. That they got one in the end was hugely significant.

When even ice cool Koeman admits afterwards that the win might well prove a massive moment in their season, you know it was important.

The defeat against Swansea the previous week was so disappointing.

Having won those tough away games you just felt Saints would put another three points on the board.

That they didn’t, and even worse in a game where they were the better team for the most part, was a gut wrencher.

They simply could not afford another at struggling QPR.

Nathaniel Clyne battles with Armand Traore

This was a rare old weekend, with a number of Saints’ European rivals either playing each other or facing big games elsewhere. It was a weekend that Saints could gain points over them.

That is not the case every weekend and so they needed to make it count.

They also need to make every match where they dominate a team produce three points.

It didn’t look as though that would happen at QPR.

Having destroyed them in the first half with raw pace, Saints had failed to score a goal.

QPR rallied towards the end but it looked as though the match would fizzle out and a goalless draw would send Koeman home frustrated and worrying the bubble might be bursting at just the wrong time.

However, when Sadio Mane lashed the ball into the top corner late into stoppage time this season was really alive and kicking again.

Koeman started Mane and Eljero Elia together in the wide positions for the first time and it devastated Rangers. They simply could not handle their pace.

The pair combined on seven minutes to put Elia in behind the QPR defence. He should have done better with a long range finish where he would have scored had he hit the target with Robert Green having got lost coming unsuccessfully for the ball.

Matt Targett receives treatment for a nasty head injury

After Victor Wanyama had volleyed wide and Matt Targett had been taken off with a head injury, Mane troubled Green twice more.

First off he chested down and fired in a shot that the QPR keeper held onto down to his left.

The second time the midfielder’s pace and skill took him into the area. He toe poked off balance and Green tipped it round the corner.

The corner almost produced a goal too, Jose Fonte meeting James Ward-Prowse’s outswinger with a volley with the outside of his boot eight yards out but rattling the crossbar.

There was one further first half chance as Elia drove into Green at the near post, and when the whistle went it was with a sense of bemusement that Saints hadn’t scored. You couldn’t believe it would be such one way traffic again in the second period, and indeed it wasn’t.

The very fact that they were not at all impressive but had hung in there seemed to buoy QPR.

They so nearly took the lead on 73 minutes as Joey Barton drilled a shot into the area after collecting a half cleared corner and former Poole Town Charlie Austin got a slight deflection on it six yards out.

With a man still back on the post alongside Forster, the QPR striker was onside, but the keeper produced a wonderful reaction save, instinctively batting the ball over the bar with a steely right arm.

Saints did create just one real chance in the second period, and they converted it.

Three minutes into four of stoppage time Dusan Tadic played the ball out to Maya Yoshida, who was excellent as a stand-in left back.

He took advantage of QPR defensive disarray by quickly turning it towards Mane, who showed strength and skill to hold off Nedum Onuoha from getting goal side as he spun in behind.

It created room for a first time shot which Mane duly drilled left footed across goal and into the opposite top corner.

Sadio Mane celebrates his winning goal

There was time for a late scare as QPR got the ball in the net only for offside to be correctly given.

Koeman’s message afterwards was to forget about the title, and that Saints aren’t even gunning for second.

But anybody who thinks they can overlook them in the race for the other big placings is sadly mistaken.