A week ago I suggest that the weakest Saints would be all season would be against Norwich City at St Mary's, but sadly injury & illness has taken it's toll, so for the second week running we will be at our weakest all season.
This week has been a tale of woe for Saints, the departures of both James Ward Prowse & Romeo Lavia was expected, what could not be predicted was the injury to Will Smallbone and the illness for Flynn Downes, meaning that neither will be playing for the team at Home Park.
This leaves Russell Martin with a problem in the centre of the midfield, it looks like he will have to give a full debut to 19 year old Shea Charles as the holding midfielder and then he has to find someone who can sit there with him, that could be Stuart Armstrong, but there is a problem at the moment with the Scotsman completing 90 minutes and this could be an issue as the game goes on, who would replace him ?
The only solution I can see in that situation is that Lyanco is brought on in the centre of defence and Jack Stephens moved to a holding role in midfield, but this is far from ideal.
The other matter is the rumours surrounding Che Adams as Everton openly pursue him and Nathan Tella who is the subject of interest from Germany.
So it's a problem weekend for Russell Martin and if we can get through it still unbeaten it will be a minor miracle.
But it is only a short term problem, with Lavia, JWP & Livramento now gone and somewhere around £125 million in the bank, as the manager confirmed, we will be dipping into the transfer market.
This is a test for both the manager and his squad, they have to show they have the attributes to get through it.
We still have a good squad, but it does need strengthening in key areas quickly.
I don't expect too many changes from the starting line up of last week, Smallbone aside, but it will be interesting to see how Martin adapts his team to the challenge they face,
Plymouth have started well and have mirrored Saints with a win and a draw in their two openers, they are on a high after promotion, but we have to make sure that the bubble bursts.
This will be a difficult one for Southampton, no one can deny that, but this is only one game in a season of 46, it could go either way, but whichever way it does go will not mean that Saints are going to get promoted or fail badly.
We know what the issues are, we know that you just can't click your fingers and get a replacement in, but if I am still writing the same preview next week, I won't be so understanding.