A TALE of two World Cup hopefuls.

Kieron Dyer, the £6m Newcastle midfielder, who winced with pain as he hobbled out of St Mary's on crutches - his England dreams in Japan resting on a knee scan after being stretchered off following a lunging tackle by Tahar El Khalej.

Anders Svensson, the £750,000 Southampton midfielder, his Norsk features drained more by tiredness than pain after initial fears that he too has succumbed to an eve of World Cup injury, limping off the field 20 minutes from time.

"It may be doom and gloom, it may be good news," surmised Newcastle Bobby Robson about Dyer afterwards. "He desperately needs a scan on his knee.

"He damaged his left knee in the tackle. We have contacted the FA and they would like him to go with their medical team to be examined. They will decide whether it is something serious.

"It could be cartilage or medial ligaments, the only good thing I can say is that the knee is not swollen, although he is in a lot of pain."

The prognosis for Svensson, who was due to meet up with the Swedish team in Stockholm this morning, was a lot more promising.

"It is not too bad," he said. "Both knees have been sore all week. I got a kick in the first half, and a pain in the other knee in the second half. It wasn't getting any better, so I thought it best to get a fit player on as soon as possible.

"I'm not too worried about the injury. It has been a long season, 17 months of non-stop football for me, and you get these kind of slight injuries when you have been playing for a long time."

Both Dyer and Svensson has insisted they wanted to play this final match of the Premiership season - they did not want to duck out of this one, and the thought of possible injury never entered the Swede's mind.

And even on the eve of the biggest football tournament of his life, Svensson still took delight in the victory over Newcastle, suggesting that this was a win the team owed to the fans after their indifferent form of late.

He added: "If you think about it like that you would get injured. You have to play as usual, do your best and have as much fun as possible.

"I was looking forward to the game because our form lately has not been as good as we wanted it. We showed to the fans in the first half that we were really hungry, and to everyone that we can really play good football. It was important to finish on a high for confidence."

Svensson got the bandwagon on the rode with a perfectly timed run after 16 minutes to round off Marian Pahars' dazzling footwork on the edge of the area.

It was his sixth goal of the season.Six minutes later, James Beattie put in Brett Ormerod, the Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given, another player with the World Cup in his mind, chose to tackle with feet, rather than hands, the Southampton striker went flying - penalty.

Up stepped Beattie, he put the ball low to Given's right, the Irishman got a hand to it, but he could only flick the ball into the roof of the net.

Two-nil at half-time and it was fair reward for a purposeful Saints side, virtually playing a 4-3-3 system, with Pahars pushed so far forward on the left-hand side.

Newcastle, safe in the dreamy land of Champions' League football, were still counting the zzzzzs in the first 45 minutes. But they woke up after the break, and then next 45 were the staging post for a major rearguard action.

Laurent Robert down the left, with fellow midfielders Nolberto Solano, Dyer and Gary Speed pushing on, caused Saints all sorts of problems. Goalkeeper Neil Moss was kept on his toes with a succession of shots from Robert, Olivier Bernard and Solano.

But the defence was breached after 54 minutes when Moss spilled Robert's left-foot volley and Alan Shearer pounced to claim his 23rd Premiership goal of the campaign.

A minute later, Dyer went flying down the right flank, pushed the ball past El Khalej, and the England man went flying. It was a reckless challenge, and Robson was enraged. Referee Andy D'Urso produced the predictable red card, and so it was ten against 11.

Any hopes of a romantic ending with substitute Matt Le Tissier enjoying a late run-out were extinguished. Garry Monk and Jo Tessem came on to shore up the defence, Fabrice Fernandes later replaced the ailing Svensson.

Fair play to Saints, they had to play 35 minutes with a man down, and they played with spirit and heart. They wanted the three points, and were rallied by the noisiest and largest St Mary's crowd of the season.

Moss was solid. Substitute Jermaine Jenas and Robert both had good efforts saved, Bernard flashed a shot just wide, and then Claus Lundekvam and Jason Dodd threw bodies in the way to deny Robert again and Shearer.

It was an absorbing battle, and it should have been settled two minutes from time when Nikolas Dabizas was picked out unmarked at the far post, but he could only shoot into the side-netting.

There was still time for one last moment. Saints won a free-kick on half way two minutes into injury time, Beattie quickly spotted Paul Telfer's run through the middle, hit the ball 30 yards to the darting midfielder, and he lofted the ball over Given for the third.

Three points in the bag, an 11th place finish to collect an extra £1.7million in prize money.

As for Svensson, he flew back to Sweden yesterday with the noise of the St Mary's crowd ringing in his ears.

"What a great atmosphere here," he said.

"Today was one of the best moments of my football career. The fans here are incredible, they were awesome and it is wonderful to be playing here every other week.

"We owed them a good performance in the last game of the season."