Saints fate in the Premier League will ultimately be decided by how well they perform in the transfer window in the coming weeks.
There arent many Saints supporters who consider that we had a succesful summer in transfer dealings, the failure to land signings of note in the three key areas, Goalkeeper, Central Defence & genuine wide players meant that we suffrered an appalling start to the season and the knock on effect still continues to hinder us with a string of errors.
The injury to Jose Fonte now accelerates the situation and it would be unthinkable not to make a major signing in this area and to be totally blunt to not do so quickly would be folly, indeed on Saturday we face yet another relegation six pointer away at Aston Villa to go into that game with the central defensive options we currently have could prove disastrous.
So Saints have to act quickly, as i write its rumoured that Saints are bidding for Davide Astori of Cagliari , newspaper reports admittably not sometimes the most accurate of sources are saying that we have bid less than the asking price, if thats the case then we need to up our offer and fast, of course we all applaud a Chairman who wont be forced into paying silly money, but the fact is with so much at stake in the Premier league, then we have to gamble and perhaps pay a little over the odds, Im sure every Saints fan backs a transfer policy where we wont be browbeaten into paying well over the odds, but the Alexander Buttner saga showed that sometimes you have to take a hit and in this league the odd million or two is sometimes worth the risk.
Football clubs are judged on results and those results at the end of the season add up to where you finish in the league, llikewise transfer policies are judged on the success of the transfer window purchases which in the bigger picture usually add up to where you finish in the league, I totally understand some of our purchases, Jay Rodriguez will be the natural replacement for Rickie Lambert and is a great back up player, but we now need experienced Premier league players to come in and do a mans job, in some respects our dealings are replicating Arsenal's although on a lower scale, they have failed to sign experienced players and are now finding themselves struggling to qualify for the Champions League whereas a few years ago they were contesting the final, we need to now get in men to do a mans job in this transfer window.
All football clubs and managers make mistakes, what distinguishes the good from the bad is not that they have made that mistake, but what they do next.