Saints Alive!

IF Wolves were to net a crucial three points at home to Southampton tonight it would certainly make people sit up and take notice.

And not just because the team would find themselves right back in the thick of the play-off picture.

No. Victory tonight would lay to rest a Southampton bogey which has been in place for some 28 years.

There have been 16 games between the clubs since Wolves last dispatched the Saints, a 3-0 win in April, 1980, in which Andy Gray (2) and Norman Bell found the net.

Six have been draws and 10 Southampton wins.

Wolves have only scored one of the last 19 goals of the fixture, none in the last 468 minutes of the fixture and only one in the last six at Molineux.

So why labour the point about the Southampton hoodoo, why linger on an apparent negative?

Well only because records are there to be broken, and tonight would be as good a time as any.

The Jam's "Going Underground" topped the charts on that April weekend when Wolves last defeated Southampton.

The crop of 2008 might find themselves going onwards and upwards should they finally end the jinx this evening.