Saints had a good first half at Pride Park, taking the lead through Adam Armstrong after only 7 minutes, but then a lack of concentration just before half time cost them dearly and we didn't seem to be able to find any sort of cohesion.
There were no surprises in the Saints line up and you hoped that would mean that Will Still had finally found not only a settled side but a winning formula, for most of the first half it looked like they had, Adam Armstrong hustled and bustled his way through the Derby defence to give us a 7th minute lead and we had plenty of chances to increase that with the Derby keeper having to be at his best on several occasions.
On 30 minutes came a blow, there were those that before the game suggested that after his two years of injury woes and his relative inaction in the first phase of the season, asking him to play a 3rd game in the space of a week might not be a good idea.
They will say they were proved right after Stewart limped off on the half hour mark with a hamstring injury, different to his previous ones it perhaps showed that his game time needs to be managed and on this occasion it wasn't.
Up to this point we looked good and as the break loomed we looked good for a half time lead, then came yet another calamitous moment of a lack of discipline and organisation.
With 5 minutes to go to the break a Derby cross field pass seemed to have been left to go out for a throw in by Ryan Manning, he seemed to have initially looked to head it to dummy a nearby opponent, but then let it go, however the linesman felt differently.
At this point Manning should have just accepted the decision and got on with it, but instead he ran over to the the linesman and disputed the call with the ferocity of a penalty claim.
Whilst he did that it enabled Derby to take a quick short throw in, into the space and the man that Manning should have been marking and plenty of time to put a curling cross into the box that caught us napping.
Some Saints fans on the day thought that this was a ball that Alex McCarthy should have come for, but I didn't agree with that view then and watching TV replays confirmed my initial opinion, it was never the keepers ball, it was just a good cross.
But it shouldn't have happened, Manning momentarily lapse in discipline and concentration cost us dearly, if he had just got on with the game then this probably would not have happened.
I don't usually like to point individual blame, after all most goals conceded are usually down to a collective team issue, rather than individuals, goalkeepers get a raw deal on this, as their individual errors are more likely to be punished than out field players.
But for this goal it highlighted that lack of leadership and organisation in the squad, why did Manning lose his rag for such a trivial decision ? it was a throw in far from goal, why did he not just get on with it ?
The answer is frustration, not just in this game but in general, I would suggest the players themselves are not sure of what they should be doing and when and this led to manning's temper boiling over.
Whatever the reason it was uncalled for and cost us dearly, but it was not just Manning, the incident had cost us concentration, if we had marked our man then the ball is headed out and the ball cleared and no goal scored and this incident might well have been forgotten by now and this article would be much different.
But for me this suggested that there is something deeply wrong within the squad, why is such a talented squad under performing so badly.
This moment changed the game, the second half was poor, we rarely looked like getting the goal that won the game and indeed had Alex McCarthy to thank for some timely saves that kept us in the game.
The second half subs just muddied the waters even further, although Will Still only made 3 second half substitutions it was hard to see what he was trying to do, when he makes a substitution it doesn't ever seem to be a like for like change, it seems to always involve shuffling the side around to bring on the new man.
When Stewart went off, why did Still not bring on a forward, he could have used Cameron Archer of Damian Downs, but it was Tom Fellows an out and out winger, we now had 3 wide men on the pitch.
After being at the club for over 4 months it seems the manager is no nearer knowing his best formation or line up than he was back in the summer, we had 5 of our new signings on the bench, they were joined by 3 players who were the spine of the side that won promotion two years ago and finally Cameron Archer who seems to be out in the cold after scoring against Watford a Month ago.
I would doubt that there are many Saints supporters who can really describe how the side lines up, especially after the hour mark when scattergun substitutions seem to upset our rhythm.
So where do we go from here, we have no identity, we have no organisation, we have no leadership and for a second season we seem to have a manager who after bringing players into the squad decides not to use them.
It is probably too early to sack Will Still, but our Director of Football Johannes Spors has some work to do here, he needs to be counselling Still about how we move forward, things can be turned around, there is still time.
We are still only 4 points off the play offs, some will say that if we had held this lead we would now be in 10th place only 2 points off and yes that is true, but we are not, it is unacceptable for Southampton FC to be in 16th place in the Championship at this time given the money we have spent in the summer, the problem is that we cannot see progress, back in August we gave the manager leeway, gave him time, but here we are two months later and we are still no nearer having a settled side dominating games as we should.
I said in a recent article that Will Still's problem is that he has too many players at his disposal and I think that is true, he is swimming in a big pool with plenty of fish and he has too many options, he has not stuck with players through sticky periods, no one gets the chance to play through a bad period, that breeds uncertainty in the squad, it makes players do the simple stuff as they are worried about giving the ball away and then getting dropped.
Perhaps Will Still is the man for the job, perhaps he will turn it around, but we haven't seen much evidence of that yet.
This game seemed like a defeat and not a draw, that is perhaps telling us something.