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And so the wait goes on.
More than 40 years have passed since Southampton last tasted the glory of lifting a major piece of silverware. Who knows how many more will come and go until it happens again.
There have been some near misses. The 1979 League Cup side, Gordon Strachan’s 2003 FA Cup finalists, and now Claude Puel’s class of 2017.
Each of those individual games had their own stories to tell – a thriller against Forest, and just a few years after the FA Cup win of 1976, a close fought occasion when severe underdogs against Arsenal, and such a near miss against Manchester United this time round.
In isolation there are plenty of reasons why it didn’t quite happen. None of them as individual occasions could be regarded as a failure.
But, taken as an overall package, the wait for that elusive next major trophy is incredibly frustrating.
Make no mistake, a club of Southampton’s size and stature, a club that has spent much of the last few decades in the top division, should have done better.
Even if you take just the last 20 years then Wigan, Portsmouth, Swansea, Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Blackburn and Leicester have all picked up a cup.
It seems entirely reasonable to think that Saints might have got themselves into that picture.
Once again they came close, but just couldn’t get over the line against United.
They were so brave, but the way this game panned out it was a very big chance missed.
Claude Puel did all the right things in the build-up. He billed Saints as the underdogs, took the pressure off them, and even named an unchanged side for the first time in 40 games in charge.
He stuck with the team that hammered Sunderland in the previous match, the 4-2-3-1 formation which had at last returned.
And it so nearly paid off. So nearly.
For all United’s firepower, their spending power – Paul Pogba alone cost more than the entire Saints team that started the game – Puel’s men had a real chance to win this game. For much of it they were the better team.
They had bad luck against them with an early referring decision, looked to be heading to a heavy defeat, then turned it around and, despite having all the momentum, couldn’t make it count. United had a decisive moment, Saints a lapse, and it was Jose Mourinho’s side lifting the trophy and more heartbreak for the men in a variation of red and white.
Once more Saints fans filed out feeling great pride in their team, and their city, but still gutted. It might have been this time, but again it wasn’t quite.
At least those supporters can rightly take credit for the colour, the noise, the atmosphere they produced. Like 2003 it was full of warmth, happiness and joy. How disappointing for them it couldn’t end with glory.
Things may have been different had Manolo Gabbiadini not had a goal harshly ruled out after just 11 minutes.
Cedric Soares recovered the ball on the right and played a low centre into the six yard box which was finished by the clinical Italian striker.
The linesman’s flag went up for offside. Gabbiadini, however, was onside. Ryan Bertrand, lurking behind, him was not. It was very harsh to say he was interfering with play, and therefore we can only conclude it was an error.
When United took the lead eight minutes later you feared it might have been the decisive moment that robbed Saints.
Zlatan Ibrahimvoic pulled out a superb 25 yard free kick that went through the wall, which was dissolved in part thanks to United invaders. Fraser Forster went full length to his right but couldn’t get anything on it.
It felt like it was potentially game over seven minutes before half time as United bagged another.
They hadn’t really deserved it on the balance of play, but they passed through Saints with ease, and when Marcos Rojo laid the ball to Jesse Lingard just inside the area he had found space between defensive midfield and centre halves and had time to measure a finish into the bottom corner.
The prospect of Saints opening up to chase the game in the second period was a slightly frightening one, but it all changed in first half stoppage time as James Ward-Prowse’s right wing cross was poached by Gabbiadini, so alert to turn home from close range through David De Gea’s legs.
The second half was wave after wave of Saints attack.
They levelled things up three minute after the restart, Gabbiadini swivelling to fire home inside the box to make it five goals in three games.
After that Saints were utterly dominant, but for all their knocking on the door the closest they came was when Oriol Romeu hit the post with a header from a corner.
United were restricted to just the odd counter attack, Forster saving from Ibrahimovic and Marcus Rashford, while Lingard slashed a presentable chance over the bar.
You could tell Puel sensed the game was there for the taking, throwing on Shane Long and Sofiane Boufal, and the Saints fans did as well. Saints looked like the only winners given the momentum of the match.
But then, three minutes from time, came a crushing blow to end it.
When Ander Herrera lifted the ball into the area, there was Ibrahimovic in the six yard box. He had been so well marshalled by Saints in the second half, but this time there was nobody near him. Predictably he bulleted a header past Forster and that was that.
So near, yet so far.
Surely the time will come again. Surely.
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