With the events of the last week completely overshadowing everything else happening at St Mary's its time to get back into the real world and concentrate on a competition we could actually win.

Over the past six months or so expectations were raased amongs't certain sections of the support, suddenly a club that had barely escaped relegation the previous season was now able to compete with the top clubs in England after the signing of only 3 players and the promise of a few 18 year olds emerging.

Whilst I am all for having ambition and setting targets, it was clear to most that Champions League qualification was not realistic, we neither had the squad, nor the money to invest to improve the squad to a level needed to genuinely challenge even the likes of Spurs who over the years have spent multi millions to rarely actually qualify for the Champions League.

What is attainable though is firstly establishing ourselves in the top ten of the Premier league and then looking to keep that progress up and like Everton, Spurs and even Liverpool in recent years look to get on the coat tails of the top four, of course even that isnt easy with a club like Newcastle also harbouring the same hopes.

So perhaps now with a reality check over the past month or so we can take a look at what we should be looking to achieve this year, firstly of course there is that top ten finish, 9th is looking a good bet, we are five points behind Newcastle so our aim should be 8th and we are seven ahead of Aston Villa, so we just need to find our form again and keep winning a few games and the likes of Villa, Hull and even Norwich at arms length.

But we do have a real shot at glory this season and that is the FA Cup, with a home te to Yeovil this weekend, with respect to the Glovers we have a great chance of progression and if we take it a lucky draw could see us on the verge of the quarter finals and with our injured players coming back into contention.

Another win or two would see us safe from relegation and with the opportunity to concentrate on the FA Cup a little more than perhaps some of the other teams left in it and that could be a big advantage, above us Manchester United, Newcastle & Spurs are already out and the other five are probably concentrating on other things at present.

Below us Aston Villa are 10th with 24 points, that is six above the relegation zone, but still at the moment a little too close for comfort, similarly the likes of Hull and Swansea etc.

This means that on Saturday we are probably just about the only team who can go into their fourth round tie with genuinely no other worries (on the field at least barring injuries) other than winning this game of football, we dont need to be resting players for more important games.

Therefore we should be looking to have a shot at this, I have said it many times, but winning a trophy is the first step in making a statement of intent about being considered a big club, it also makes it a lot easier to sign decent players if you can offer them European competition, even if it is only the Europa League and that in itself is a competition worth winning given the relatively few number of English clubs who have won a European trophy.

Hopefully now we can get back to concentrating on football and for me that means winning games and looking to win trophies, back in 2010 we all enjoyed the JPT run and final, we all realised that it wasn't a big trophy, we took it for what it was, a good day out and a step in the right direction that reminded people we were on the way up, likewise back in 2003 our FA Cup Final appearance ultimately ended in failure but it was good times along the way and again made people sit up and notice, perhaps its time to remember why the name Football club is in our name.

Photo: Action Images

davidhosey added 11:39 - Jan 20 Agree Nick. It would be great to get into europe. It would be a great education for some of our young players eg Chambers, Shaw and JWP. We are safe in the league and seem to have little chance of climbing much higher. Lets go for it !
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halftimeorange added 12:35 - Jan 20 I agree that the FA cup is an opportunity for our club. One of the drawbacks over a European campaign is the fact that we cannot regularly fill a 32000 stadium whilst playing in arguably the best league in the world and fielding six or seven Englishmen. What support would we garner competing against teams in the Europa League from the backwaters of Europe? Attendances could be embarrassing.

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SaintNick added 12:59 - Jan 20 If the prices are set at the right level it gives the club a chance to attract supporters who cannot afford the Premier league games, it helps in building up future generations of supporters
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