A Premier League season to beat all others for Saints, or a missed opportunity?

Such has been the, at times, surreal nature of the Premier League this season, even with the benefit of hindsight it’s rather hard to tell.

Leicester winning the title, Chelsea finishing in midtable, the late implosion of Tottenham, the utter woefulness of Aston Villa. It has been a strange campaign all round.

Saints have capitalised on this state of top flight flux. Whether they have made the most of it is open to debate.

The first thing to say is that this has been a brilliant season, and nothing should be allowed to detract from that.

Having finished seventh and recorded 60 points in the previous campaign, Ronald Koeman started keen to point out that bettering their Premier League era best statistically was not necessarily how he would measure progress.

That’s because he recognised that to reach such heady heights again would be extremely tough indeed.

Not only did Saints show the kind of progress as a squad and a club he was hinting at, but into the bargain they went one better in their finishing position and three better on the points tally to get statistical bragging rights too.

That is a really fantastic achievement.

Koeman’s plan last summer to allow just a couple of big sales to enable him to increase the depth in the squad worked a treat.

Saints were never as stretched as they were in the previous campaign, and always had options both in terms of personnel and formation.

They not only picked up wins against the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal, Tottenham and Man City, but also played some very attractive football too.

Certainly you would be hard pressed to find any Saints fan with much to complain about when the season is taken as a whole.

There is just one slight nagging doubt, however, and that is whether it might have been even better.

Leicester do not have a better team or squad than Saints and won the title. Saints, meanwhile, were just three points shy of the Champions League placings.

Most teams have what ifs at the end of the season, and Saints are not exempt.

Many will point to the poor run of form around the turn of the year as being what really cost them.

Of course it did to a certain extent, but most clubs have a fairly sticky patch at some point or another, it’s only Leicester that really haven’t had that. It’s unreasonable to expect Saints to have just magically done the same.

However, that three point gap to the Champions League spots is frustratingly small.

We can feel Saints might have made a big leap.

That’s because we aren’t just able to flippantly say ‘oh, if only they hadn’t had that bad run,’ as if magically that could have been waved away. Or were even rueing a spate of injuries as, like Leicester, Saints were largely blessed in that respect.

It’s here we are able to look at a number of games in which they did play really well, in which they created numerous chances, but they just weren’t able to convert them.

Really it wasn’t a case of having to have done any better, it wasn’t a case of having to have upped their game, or done something totally different. It was just a tiny bit extra to convert chances already created.

That was particularly the case away from home, and is Koeman’s nagging frustration of the season.

At home Saints were the second highest goalscorers with only Manchester City netting more.

Away from home they netted 19 less, and only five teams did worse on their travels – and three of those were relegated.

That is such a stark contrast, and one that didn’t really reflect the way they played away from home either. So often it was a case of points that had been earned not being collected.

The really annoying thing is that you have to expect it will be even tougher for Saints next season.

Manchester City and Chelsea are getting top level new managers and will invest heavily to ensure they do better, Manchester United are clearly improving and will be better whether under Louis Van Gaal or not, and Liverpool are sure to get their league form sorted under Jurgen Klopp.

The old order looks ominously like it might be restored, and that leaves clubs like Saints having to fight and scrap again.

It’s why Leicester is such a one-off story. They really did capitalise on the circumstances they were given. Nobody expects it to happen that way again.

For all that, though, Saints have done very well, and ultimately secured their pre-season target of securing European football once more.

Hopefully this time it proves a more fulfilling experience than it was last time.

Saints will be hoping for an altogether more settled summer, with few big name departures, and, of course, the news that Koeman extends his stay beyond next season.

The club have managed progression despite some instability in the playing squad, which is a rare feat. That won’t continue forever.

If the club really are to make that big leap they need to be strong, they need to put down a marker as to their ambition.

Koeman is central to that.