Saturday's defeat to Stoke City at St Mary's was unexpected and disappointing, however these things happen and Saints now need to regroup and move forward.

Judging by some comments on social media, Saints might as well start preparing for Championship football now, however that is a knee jerk reaction and one thing we have learn't in the past 18 months or so is that Ralph Krueger and his staff do not do knee jerk reactions.

Yes it was a poor defeat and the manner in which it happened even poorer, it was all things being considered Saints worst performance of the season overall, but all sides have a bad day at the office from time to time and this was our first for over two months when Manchester United beat us in mid September. Back then the loss was disappointing because sloppy defending cost us dearly but we played well and scored twice, on Saturday we were lacklustre.

So what Saints need to do now, is regroup, analyse and move forward, Im sure that is what Ronald Koeman will be doing with his squad this week and the supporters need to do the same.

This was a blow to us, we could have moved up to sixth with a win and now the likelihood is that we will be ninth after this evenings game, but we are still in the mixer and their is a long way to go yet.

Of course travelling to Manchester City for our next game is not ideal, but we have to deal with these things and even if we suffer back to back defeats we still have the squad in place to start off another unbeaten run and move up the table.

So we need to be positive moving forward, December is a tricky month but one with plenty of opportunities, we will suffer setbacks, but they are not terminal, we will again "March On" slowly but surely improving the status of the club both on and off the field.

Photo: Action Images

IWOZTHERE added 21:24 - Nov 23 Fine sentiments Nick but a bit like a 'club statement'? I'm still trying to stop my knee 'Jerking' after that pile of 'you know what' on Saturday and it's bringing my dark side out so I won't dwell on it. Except.... We all bought into this sell big and buy cheap young players FOR THE FUTURE, like Cedric, but now he's getting stick because he's not brilliant defensively. FFS we only paid about £3m for him.. That's a criticism of the criticism and may be a criticism of the transfer policy?

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