Leicester City are in high spirits following Tuesday's 5-0 thrashing of Southampton, as the Foxes are on the verge of bouncing back to the Premier League at the first attempt.
Enzo Maresca's men now only need one more win to secure their place in the top-flight next season. The visit of the Saints looked to be a potential banana skin, though fears were confidently brushed aside in a dominant home display.
The cause for some concern prior to kick-off was the visitors' proximity to the automatic promotion spots. They had left their last-ditch push quite late, though remained in with a chance whilst needing help from outside forces.
READ MORE: Enzo Maresca sent 'shuts us all up' message after dominant Leicester City win
But ultimately with Leicester too strong, Southampton's push is all but over. It is not mathematically confirmed, though they would require both Leeds United and Ipswich Town to lose their remaining fixtures whilst overturning a goal difference of 19.
It means a fourth-place finish is the likeliest outcome, and therefore they will have to dust themselves off for the play-offs. As is the nature of the beast, the turnaround between the season's end and that competition is quick, and so Neil Warnock has told Russell Martin he cannot allow his players to lull in the wake of this latest defeat.
Feeling sympathy, the 75-year-old began : "You've picked a time when you don't want to be interviewed, when you've lost 5-0, and the questions - I might have chinned him [the reporter] if he'd have been talking to me! But, I know you can't do that.
"He knows they were terrible, but he's got to brush himself down on the journey home. He's got to stress to the players 'we've had so many supporters tonight travel all this way and pay good money, and you've let them down so much that we've got to repay these now by getting into the Premier League'."
"They've had a great season. A bad start, a great run - the history, the number of undefeated games," he added, before calling upon his wisdom as a football coach of 44 years to brilliantly suggest: "He's got to forget about all this and take them for a Chinese tomorrow or something like that. Have a good laugh and get it out their system.
"Never mind training - training is no good. They don't want to be extra training, they want to relax and remind each other how good they have been."
