Saints forced to replay by Tranmere

Down the narrow corridors of The Dell there was no trace of rejoicing from the Tranmere Rovers dressing room, more the hushed tones of the funeral parlour.

The prospect of another place in the sixth round of the FA Cup, another night of glory at Prenton Park tomorrow and another Premiership victim to add to an impressive list of casualties held little appeal.

Paul Rideout, the 36-year-old striker whose boots have taken him to a catalogue of clubs and to spells in the United States and China, explained the melancholy of himself and his colleagues.

'We battled hard to hold Southampton but when we got to the dressing room and learned that the First Division results had put us bottom we were all bitterly disappointed,' he said. 'I was relegated at Swindon in my first season as a professional and I don't want it to happen in my last.' It is one of football's mysteries that a side like Tranmere can spank Everton and frustrate Southampton in the FA Cup, yet can't win a First Division game.

Rideout says: 'We get ourselves up for the better opposition but we can't seem to win the bread and butter League games.' To be brutally truthful, a moment or two of self-analysis might help Rideout, who has scored only three goals in 32 appearances this season. The plain truth is that the team can't score goals.

John Aldridge, who was quite useful in that art himself in his heyday, spoke bluntly about the Tranmere conundrum.'It is doing my head in,' he said. 'It gives you sleepless nights looking at the League table but I just have to keep a belief in myself and in the players.' Ironically, it has often been Southampton's fate to have the spectre of relegation hanging over their cup exploits, a shadow that has been lifted under Glenn Hoddle. The Saints manager knows that the buzz around the docks and the rural heartland of Hampshire is that this might be their season in the FA Cup, an optimism the managers does not want to dispel.

But Hoddle is a realist and he is well aware that far bigger clubs have come to grief on The Wirral. 'We are not out of the tie but obviously it is now going to be more difficult,' he said.