Technically it is still only the 3rd worst, but I would suggest that if we are not careful with a couple of tricky fixtures coming up that position might change.
Saints have conceded 16 goals in the opening 9 Premier League fixtures and only the two bottom clubs Watford and Norwich City have conceded more, both with 21 in the goals against column.
I would say a fair assessment of our situation is this, we are ok in the full back department, our issue is in the centre of defence.
It is a bold statement but I would say that not one of our current central defenders, or at least those that have played there so far, would not get a game at any other Premier League club, pretty damning, but I don't think I am far wrong.
I would also say that if we took two central defenders from any other Premier League side and put them in our team, then we would be comfortably in mid table.
That is the good news, I don't think we have a bad team, just a poor centre of defence, so there is some hope yet.
As I have said till I'm blue in the face this means that we will get away with things in some games, but in others we will defend like rank amateurs and pay the price.
Good teams build from the centre of the back four, our teams under both Pochettino and Ronald Koeman did, solid defenders who could keep things tight and were organised, Jose Fonte was not always the best defender it terms of his quality, but he could read a game and control and organise things at the back and we are sorely missing that at the moment.
Var is much maligned by fans of many clubs, but for us it is our best defender so far this season.
The light at the end of the tunnel though is that with the changes in the recruitment side of things perhaps we can rectify things in January, in the summer we seemed to be focusing on a certain type of player, one that had to be young and hungry etc, we seemed to ignore experience and as Lawrie Mcmenemy would always say, you need variety in any side, you need an experienced player who can call the shots.
Gary Cahill would have been an ideal signing, but we seemed to shy away from that type of signing, but sometimes you have to spend money on players that won't have a resale value to get a job done.
Last night Phil Jagielka sat on the bench for Sheffield United, as he has done for most of the season, but he would walk into our central defence and that tells you something, the Blades beat Arsenal because they have a tight back four who know there job and how to do it, they are everything we are not and that is organised.
They are not the best players, but they are disciplined and that is why the Blades sit in 9th place 4 points above us and no other side has conceded less than them.
The next two months will be tough, but we can do nothing about it other than try and encourage our team and stir them on to victory, then hopefully in January things will change, in fact they have to change.
So our task is simple starting with the Leicester game we have 11 Premier League fixtures where we will win some and lose some, the likes of Yoshida and Vestergaard are too old in the tooth to suddenly become class acts who can read and organise a game, but aisde from actually playing Kevin Danso in the position we signed him for, we have to stick with them.
We need to get more than 11 points in this period, if we can do that then we need to get a central defender identified, signed up and ready to play in the first week of January.
Forget the blueprint remember that the Southampton Way was never just about developing young players it was also about nurturing those youngsters by playing them alongside experienced pros, whether it was Ted Bates, Lawrie McMenemy or Chis Nicholl, there was always an old head or two in and amongst the fresh young faces.
At the moment we are the worst defence in the Premier League, I have never seen such a shambles, if you say i have something against the likes of Yoshida and Stephens etc as some used to accuse me of a couple of years ago, but not so much now, I make no apologies, we have failed to deal with the situation for the last three years, DO SO IN JANUARY !