Saints take on Leeds United at St Mary's seemingly in crisis after only one game of the season, so it will be all eyes on Ralph Hasenhuttl and his team selection and will it give any clues as to whether the dressing room is unified behind the manager or otherwise.

Sometimes in a season it needs a catalyst to kick start it, after the "leaks" of this week the Saints supporters will be looking to see how much substance those leaks had, where they just the mischief making of a disgruntled player or ex employee or do they run far deeper than that.

In the past adversity has united and motivated our squad, some of our best results have been obtained because the dressing room has stood up and been counted, the fans have got behind them and we have triumphed because of that.

So will this game be one of those special days or will it see the team brought down by the circumstances.

I don't know who is behind the rumours, but as i have written in another article, it does not bode well, back in February we had risen up the table after a 13 game run in the Premier League that saw us lose just twice and then in the next 12 we lost 9.

Now that is not just the manager, I have seen some far worse managers at this club than Ralph Hasenhuttl, I have seen some far worse teams under those managers, but i have never seen such a set of poor results, there is a saying in football, once a team crosses that white line on to the pitch, the result is determined by the players and not the manager.

So we need to look to our team to motivate themselves and do it not for the manager, not just for the fans, but to do it for themselves as professional footballers.

I have my own opinions as to why we have gone on this run, I have mentioned players in the squad that don't appear interested, but I do believe it is a minority, if it wasn't how did we go on that 13 game run in mid season and for those who say it was all down to Armando Broja he would score just 3 times in those 13 games.

So what does Ralph do for this game, does he stick with his 3 at the back or does he revert to 4-4-2, this is the first big question, given that we have played with the 3 central defenders through pre season, I would suggest that he will stay with this again.

The big question though is who starts in the back 3, against Spurs he started with Valery, Bednarek & Salisu, bringing on Jack Stephens for Valery at half time.

I thought that was harsh and it will be interesting to see who survives from that starting trio for this game.

Organisation is going to be the key, but the problem is we have no one, personally I find it difficult to decide who should play, Jan Bednarek clearly doesn't want to be here, but he is a far better player than Stephens, do we go for the loyal club man who despite my misgivings about him always gives 100% or for Bednarek, a tough choice.

The centre of midfield was strong against Spurs, but it is the flanks that are the issue, Kyle Walker Peters is a no brainer it is only a question of what side he plays.

The obvious choice is to play Romain Perraud on the left, but the Frenchman is not a wing back, he is a reasonable left back in a back four, but although he is decent going forward, he hasn't the engine needed for a wing back.

Do we keep Djenepo on the left ? he came in for stick at Spurs, truth was going forward he was decent, a good run and lay back setting up James Ward Prowse for the opening goal of the game, But defensively he is naive, he needs to be talked through the game by the defenders behind him and none of them talk, so he keeps getting caught out positionally.

Perhaps against Leeds we can go for the attacking option, but personally I would utilise KWP and Stuart Armstrong as the wide men in midfield.

Up front is the question, Che Adams is the obvious go to, but there is something wrong there, last season despite being leading scorer Adams was left out for Armando Broja when really he should have been played, whether Ralph Hasenhuttl was trying to persuade the Alabanian his future lay at St Mary's I don't know, but it certainly affected Adams and he has not played as much in pre season as he should have.

My first though is play Adams and Adam Armstrong they linked well early last season but where does that leave Joe Aribo who has been the best of a bad bunch.

The key is Che Adams, does he want to be at the club, what is his relationship with the manager, we will get clues on Saturday.

What we seem to have forgotten though is that although the defeat at Spurs was disappointing, it was down to individual errors in the main, on the hour mark and 2-1 down we are still in the game and starting to look like we can get something out of it and then a massive individual error from Salisu, I am not going to blame him completely, there was a man behind him who should have been telling him to let the ball run, but ultimately it changed the course of the game.

We were expected to lose at Spurs, we were expected to lose the first game of the season, we always do, so why was there such an outcry, the answer is because we were architects of our own destruction, but it was not entirely the managers fault, sometimes the players have to take responsibility and the defeat was down to individual error be it blatant like Salisu's own goal or more subtle such as KWP normally so reliable letting his man get behind him for the opener.

But the fact still remains that we are only one game in, if we win this our second game then it can change things drastically , to do so then we have to make this one of those special occasions that we used to have during tough times in the 1990's at the Dell and indeed have had many times at St Mary's.

Everyone needs to be kicking in the same direction, for 90 minutes it doesn't matter what is happening off the pitch, be it player power, issues in the Itchen North or whatever, we just need to win a game of football and get the season started.

Photo: Action Images

davidargyll added 11:52 - Aug 12 All very fair comments but I think the attitude of the team, the coaching staff, the crowd tomorrow is key. Will they help each other or blame each other? Will Ralph get antsy or stay calm? Will the fans support the team or boo them? Don’t know. But I’m very nervous as I suspect most of us are. The problem is that a seed has now been sown, Leeds will be at us from the off and unless we win convincingly we will be on a downward spiral. And everyone, from the Board, Ralph, the supporters, Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, will know it. And I hate to admit this but I’m afraid I can only see one way for this all to end : if we win RH stays (but for how long?), but if we lose - which I would say is quite likely - then it looks like sayonara… PS. RH is currently favourite for the next manager to lose his job…

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SaintNick added 12:03 - Aug 12 Fair points although I think that Ralph has a few games left yet even if we lose, the board could not be seen to bow down so supposed player power
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TimSaint added 12:23 - Aug 12 I said that against Villarreal, we were making the same old mistakes, poor passing, stupid flicks, trying to play our way out of trouble, not taking the easy option and relying on last gasp defending. I said that if we did this against Spurs, we would get punished. The same will happen tomorrow unless somehow, these unforced errors have been eliminated from our game. It doesn't seem to matter who we line up with, the same mistakes are consistently made. New coaching staff, time to earn you pay !!

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Peterx added 12:29 - Aug 12 Would be great to see the fans behind the team tomorrow no matter what happens. Also chose between Oriel and Lavia, we can't have both imo.
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Colburn added 12:52 - Aug 12 This is one of two or three games before the world cup which on paper look winnable. A draw may get us up and running but we really need a win, looking at the fixtures ahead and our issues behind the scenes. A loss and I will fear for us. I also think the withdrawal of Valery was a bit harsh and I would have preferred to see us revert to a back 4 with KWP on the left and Djenepo further forward where he has the potential to do some damage. With little attacking options on the pitch, mazy dribblers can help no end in relieving pressure, winning free kicks and creating chances like he did for the goal. You can point the finger at the players for our poor run of form but this shows that they are either not playing for the manager or don't understand / believe in the tactics and set up.. Whatever it is, the only solution after 3 years is to find a new manager or change the squad which is infected with negativity atm.

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Boris1977 added 16:20 - Aug 12 There are several problems at the club which we have fans can only guess at. But to be clear, those who have called time on Ralph's tenure are not basing this on one result. This is down to 3 seasons of diminishing returns from Ralph's way of doing things. You pointed out in the 'leak' article that the Ralph haters are glad that the story in the Mail. Nobody on this forum has ever stated that they hate Ralph and the vast majority who now believe he should leave generally qualify comments by saying they actually like Ralph. You're assumption on this point is as biased as an I'll informed daily Mail article. What I find crazy is why the Ralph cultists thought anything would change this season when the same issues have not been addressed. For the record, I like Ralph, believe he thinks what he is doing but results and his bewildering decisions lead me to believe he's not going to change and neither will results.

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KriSaint added 16:55 - Aug 12 With Ralph we have beaten every established PL team besides Man.U. We have beaten Man.C., L'pool, Tottenham (twice), Arsenal, WH, Leicester, Villa etc. etc. Ralph deserves more respect from many of us fans, I think. Remember that he has - before this season - spend less than he has sold players for. Let's give him the first 1/3 of this season before we - maybe - start talking about getting rid of him, I say.

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Ifonly added 20:07 - Aug 12 Sadly Moussa Djenepo is a liability in a wing back role. I like him but not there. It's not just about people guiding him, he just doesn't seem to me to have the positional sense. If we're going to play wing backs, I would play JWP on the right and KWP on the left. With Lavia in the team, we don't need JWP so much in the middle and I'm sure he could create a lot with some great balls in from the right as well as being more than able to do the defensive duties.

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SanMarco added 20:13 - Aug 12 We are weak at CB so why not play only 2. If I see Jack Stephens on the pitch at any time tomorrow I will scream. Play a left back at left back rather than a novelty player. I don't care if he isn't a 'wing-back' - they seem to just get stuck up the pitch. Play Che Adams. Then just cross our fingers and hope for the best.
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Block8 added 22:26 - Aug 12 442 with Adams and Armstrong (A) up front but we must get the ball to them!
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Boris1977 added 05:52 - Aug 13 A simple formation with the combination of talent available within our squad playing to their strengths would see us comfortably mid table. Playing convoluted inverted christmas tree transitional formations on a twenty minute rotation throughout 90 minutes will confuse players and lose us matches. We don't have the talent to play anything more than 442 so FFS why not just play that with square pegs in square holes for a handful of games and see what happens?

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