This time last week it was all doom and gloom in Saints World, we were out of the FA Cup and had only won once in two months, now it's all changed.
Two straigh home wins in a week plus the signing of Charlie Austin have worked wonders for the morale of supporters of Southampton Football Club, a four day period changed the mood from one of depression into positivity.
This season's Premier League is a funny one, it is highly condensed in that if we had lost both of our two home games this week we would be 14th in the table with the possibility that if Swansea win tonight then we would be only four points off of relegation.
But that did not happen and the six points catapulted up to 10th place, but more imortantly within striking distance of the top 7 and not too far behind 6th, 5th and even 4th to emphasise just were we could be if we had just had a poor run instead of an appalling one.
Hopefully Watford will fail to win at Swansea this evening and we will still be in 10th come 10pm.
But it was not just the two wins, nor the manner of them that has ut the faith back into Saints supporters, the signing of Charlie Austin showed that the club is serious about keeping moving forward and that was a big boost.
Sometimes it is all about perception and in the space of a few days the perception of many supporters was suddenly changed about where the club is.
We are now looking at moving up the Premier league again and as a glance at the league tables show, there is no reason why we should not emulate last season's 7th place.
Suddenly from a current form perspective of only four points from six games we are now up to nine from the last six and in the current form table that puts us 7th.
Ok we have two tough away games coming up, but after that we get a decent run f games, the job now is to keep focused and keep aiming at the top six and see where we end up.
We have good reason to be optimistic though, we have not only come through an appalling run of late, but also a tough start to the season where we were ravaged by injuries, with those players now back and fit including Fraser Forster, plus the addition of Charlie Austin we have every reason to believe that we can have a far better finish to the season than start.
This time last year we were third with 42 points from 22 games, still 10 ponts from the leaders, this year Leicester who are being touted as in with a chance of winning the title sitting joint top have 44 from the same number of games, perhaps emphasising just how great the first half of the season was last year for us.
But we fell away badly in the last 16 games, we only got 18 points from the last 16 games and we are capable of beating that, with everyone beating everyone else in this seasons topsy turvy league, it will take less points than last year to achieve 7th place so that should be our minimum.
But I have always maintained that last season would be hard to beat and therefore a top 10 finish would be a triumph, with losing key players last summer this season was always going to be one of consolidation in many respects, bad timing given so many of the big clubs are failing to dominate, but next season we could again be the surprise side, in that we have built a squad that the likes of Leicester, Palace, Watford, even West Ham do not have.
That means that although the depature of one possibly two players for big money is inevitable in the summer, we should in fact be welcoming it as another chance to build up the squad, Wanyama and Mane have been attracting alleged big money offers, but the stark truth is that they have not been worth anything like that value to us this season, Wanyama and Mane on form would be in our side every week, but not for the performances they have been putting in so far this season.
So there is a lot to look forward to both this season and next, yes there has been plenty of disappointments this term, but we have to learn from them and use those lessons to move forward.
Some Saints fans should learn that patience is a virtue and every club will suffer poor form and traumas in a season, that does not mean that the club is in turmoil, stay behind the team have faith in the strategy the club is adopting, sometimes it is not all about current form, but about more long term aims and things that will make us stronger.
This club is far stronger and better run than it was two years ago when Katharina Liebherr took over.we are still paying the price of the financial follies of that time and with the departure of Gaston Ramirez it will free up a big chunk of wages to bring in quality signings, this club runs itself properly and it cannot just write off £5 million in wages per year lightly, make no bones the last two years have been restricted by the cost of money wasted on both Ramirez and Osvaldo, it is strong because of money bought in from transfers, it enabled us to rebuild and compete.
It's now time to look to the future and not the past, we cannot keep on harking back to it whenever we have troubled times, the mood now is positive, let's keep it that way !