Entertainment returned to St Mary's in a pulsating game, but worryingly what was still there from last season was a lack of leadership and organisation in the centre of our defence, with the money about to roll in, we need to spend some of it fast and well.
It felt strange at St Mary's , with no James Ward Prowse in the squad for the first time in years, they say sometimes you don't realise what you have until it's gone and even his biggest critic would agree that we missed James Ward Prowse yesterday, tomorrow a little of the soul of Southampton Football Club will depart and we will miss him greatly as this game showed.
But if we missed JWP in midfield, we lacked any sort of leadership or organisation in the back four, Jan Bednarek and Jack Stephens were not a good combination, both lack the organisational skills that we have badly lacked since the departure of Virgil Van Dijk nearly 6 years ago and both lack the pace that we need.
The game started badly for Saints, after only 7 minutes came the first defensive lapse, or at leas the first to cost us a goal in this game, a cross to the far post found Josh Sargent completely unmarked and he headed home from close range leaving Bazunu no chance.
But we rallied and 10 minutes later came the first of 2 goals in 4 minutes, firstly Jan Bednarek smashed the ball home after ex Saint Angus Gunn in the Norwich goal parried Jack Stephens header, then came a well taken Adam Armstrong penalty to put us into the lead.
But the lead would not last long and Sara silenced the Saints celebrations only 2 minutes later with a superb shot into the top corner.
So into the break at 2-2, well nearly, a corner in stoppage time saw Rowe completely unmarked and he placed his free header into the far corner, again abysmal marking and not a player near him but three men watching and marking fresh air.
But Saints were back on even terms before the hour mark with Che Adams scoring a well taken goal and you hoped at this stage we would go on to win the game, once again our defence was caught napping and unable to handle a fast attack on the break, a cross into the penalty area was not cleared and Fassnacht fired home to make it 4-3 with only 6 minutes left.
But the big plus point about this game was Saints didn't give up, they kept going and got the reward in the 7th minute of injury time, there should have been a penalty a second earlier for a shirt pull, which was far more blatant than the foul on Kyle Walker Peters, but the Saints fans weren't complaining and up stepped Adam Armstrong who again finished well from the spot with a confidence that to be honest James Ward Prowse never had from the spot.
So a great game to watch, but very much one where 2 points were dropped, but as I said in the preview this was a game where we find ourself at the weakest we will be as a squad at any time this season, the sale of Lavia & JWP this week should hopefully see us able to buy and the first thing we need is a central defender, one with pace, one with organisational skills and a leader.
I didn't have to thing hard on this one, I have said pretty much the same thing for the last six years.
Some will say we need a striker, I don't think at the moment that is a priority, creating and scoring goals isn't a problem, we have 3 players who are proven scorers at this level, if we keep them all, then there isn't a problem, if we only sign one more player this month it has to be a central defender.
The stats of the game are as has been the norm under Russell Martin, 70% possession saw us have 31 attempts of varying goal threat, 11 of them were on target of which 2 went in (penalties don't count) in contrast from their 30% of the play, they had 15 attempts , that is a reasonable ratio, so is the fact that they had 6 on target, but the fact that 4 of them went in is totally unacceptable, especially when you consider that 3 of the 4 were shocking defending.
We should be sat in the top 3 this morning, only Ipswich & Leicester have taken maximum points so far, instead we sit in 6th, one of 8 clubs with 4 points.
This is not a bad start given the position of upheaval we find ourself in at the moment, both in terms of transfer ins & outs, but also adapting to the new system, hopefully this will now start to improve on both counts, we will make several signings in the next couple of weeks that will improve us, if one of them is that leader and organiser in the back four we so desperately need then we should have no worries for the rest of the season, for now though we have to keep going .
So in conclusion a satisfactory first two games of the season that see us unbeaten and well placed, but satisfactory is not good enough, Russell Martin knows he will be judged on getting Saints promoted, that means winning games and winning a lot of them.
It was good to see a full St Mary's and it was great support from all four sides of the ground, the crowd got behind the team and stayed with it, even when things weren't going our way.
Things are going to get better, only but when the transfer window closes will be the time we truly know where we stand and can then move forward with certainty.