Ronald Koeman is impressing Saints supporters with every passing week and the general feeling is that Saints have actually upgraded on the managerial front.
Last season there was a wave of admiration for Mauricio Pochettino and the job he was doing at Saints, many waxed lyrical on social media suggesting that this was the best ever football ever played by Saints and the Argentinian was the best manager we have ever had.
Personally although I admired the way he had re structured our playing style, I always felt that we only had one way of playing and i was not impressed by his failure to use the squad to its full potential, when I expressed these doubts in articles on this site I was often ridiculed by some who clearly didnt see what I did.
I also felt there was an aloofness about Pochettino that suggested he was not really that committed to the club and saw it as a stepping stone, his refusal to speak English at press conferences smacked of arrogance and although it was amusing at first it soon became tiresome especially when it became clear he could speak the language, in many ways it was an insult to Saints supporters that he would not deem to speak to us directly.
Two months ago the word "Meltdown" was used with alarming regularity, even the appointment of Ronald Koeman did not appease many but the Dutchman just got on quietly with the job.
In the last two games we have started to see the fruits of his work, whilst I do sing his praises with some caution as we are only 4 games in to the season, I can also see that he is a manager who unlike his predecessor has tactical nous that means he is very pro active rather than re active.
Last season we had a reputation amongst other managers in the Premier for being a team that could play one way and one way only, and the downside of that type of game was that after the hour mark the players started to tire, yes you could use substitutions, but that could only replace three players not an entire team who would be running out of steam and other teams knew it.
It was no coincidence that the other teams knew that if they scored first then it would be rare for us to comeback. if they could combat our way of playing then there was no plan B, they also knew that we were prone to giving away leads, in 8 games last season we scored the opening goal of the game(in two of them we went 2-0 up) and subsequently did not win the game, in total we dropped 21 points from this winning position.
In contrast we did not win one game home or away in 2013/14 where we had to come from behind, although we had 6 draws from this handicap, amazingly in Pochettino's entire reign never once did we win a game from a losing position. in the Premier League.
Ironically this weekend Pochettino is bemoaning the fact that Spurs lead twice at Sunderland yet did not win the game and is puzzled how they didn't win, I don't know why all he has to do is watch a few games from his time at St Mary's that may tell him a few things.
Now we have Ronald Koeman a man that has several game plans as he showed at West Ham where we did need to come from behind and yesterday against Newcastle where he changed tactics several times using his substitutions to great effect rather than the like for like changes we always saw under Pochettino.
But more than that Koeman uses his squad, he is not afraid to drop players in order to put out what he considers to be the right side for the occasion, but perhaps more importantly it is his ability to be pro active and read where a game is going and make those changes that impresses me. On Saturday after we blitzed Newcastle and took a two goal lead, he changed tactics, bought on Wanyama to make sure that Newcastle didn't grab a lifeline, when we had increased our lead again he changed tactics, bringing off Dusan Tadic and bringing on JWP to great effect, right at the end he also gave Gardos his debut for the club so he got a feel of the pace of the Premier League ready for when he is called to action.
I just have a feel for Koeman that here is a man who has a feel for the club, of course he won't be our manager for ever, but whilst he is here he is committed and part of the community, the Dutch have a footballing mentality like the English in respect of they know what a club means to the fans and that it has traditions etc.
From what I have seen so far from Koeman he has what it takes to truly take the club foward both in terms of how he has built a great squad up but also how he has built an attacking exciting squad, last season yes we did see some great performances, but we also saw some dire ones, the last two for Saints have resulted in great wins against West Ham and Newcastle, some would say that these are not the best teams in the league this year and that may prove to be the case, but you can only beat what is in front of you, Newcastle have had a tough start, but they only lost 2-0 at hoe to Man City on the opening weekend, they followed it up with two draws, one a toughie at Villa who are in form this year and now this defeat.
I feel that if Koeman can maintain his progress then this could truly be a season to remember, especially since we still have Sadio Mane to come into the squad and the return from injury of Jay Rodriguez, we now have far more firepower than last year and Koeman is getting the best out of players, Morgan Schneiderlin might just have had a lucky escape in being refused a transfer, already he has scored more goals than the whole of last term, yes eventually he will go, but it could be to a better club than Spurs if he keeps up his start.
Koeman has that reputation for getting better things from players than they have ever managed before as in Graziano Pelle as well as bringing through youngsters and that has always been the Southampton way since the 1950's when Ted Bates made Saints something more than just a football club.
Last season we had the players but I always had the feeling that we did well in spite of Pochettino more than because of him, the stats back that up, both in the fact that we rarely beat clubs above or around us and although we could despatch the bottom 5 with aplomb we could never quite close out the better teams as shown by those 21 points dropped.
It will be a long season, but we now have a manager who is focussed on a lot more than just avoiding the drop and therefore not wanting Europa League qualification to get in the way, Ronald Koeman is a winner, both as a player and a manager, in that respect he is the best qualified manager we have ever had, I think he might soon be considered one of the best and be spoken of in the same terms we refer to Lawrie McMenemy & Ted Bates and to a lesser degree Gordon Strachan, I truly hope so, there is a bright future ahead for Saints, something that didn't look possible to some only a few short weeks ago