Saints travel to a Blackburn Rovers side who are sat 2nd from bottom in the Championship and who have taken just a single point in the last 5 games, surely this is the time for the Saints revival to begin.
This Preview could be sub titles "What Will Still Do Next" as to be quite frank, the defeat at Bristol City showed that we are a squad that lacks Leadership, Organisation, Passion, Guts, Confidence, Winning Mentality, I could go on, but it lacks everything that is needed to be a top team in this division bar Quality, it undoubtably has that, but Quality means nothing if it doesn't have all of the attributes listed and more.
Some will point to the fact that since we beat Leeds in the play off final in May 2024, we have played 49 League games and won only 4 of them as evidence that we have lost the winning mentality, but out of the starting line up against Bristol City on Tuesday night, only Taylor Harwood Bellis, Cameron Archer & Adam Armstrong played a significant number of games, Welington & Nathan Wood played 10 & 11 games respectively, Alex McCarthy played 5, Ryan Fraser started 4 plus 4 as sub & Ronnie Edwards just a brief appearance off the bench.
Likewise those who came off the bench, of the 4 subs used only Ryan Manning played a significant part last season, Jay Robinson had a small number of cameo minutes right at the end of the season and Fellows & Downs weren't at the club.
So there were few players involved on Tuesday who were regulars last season, most of those who were there were onlookers rather than starters.
So with the new arrivals in the squad perhaps 2/3 of the squad is made up of those who played little or no part last season, so have not had their confidence battered by playing week in week out in defeats.
So it is time to start feeling sorry for ourselves and get into a winning formula, the first 30 minutes at Bristol showed we have the quality as did the first 10 minutes of the second half, but the other 50 minutes or so showed that the manager has failed to instil any of the attributes needed to win promotion at least so far and that any side who we play who have a leader in the team and are well organised are virtually guaranteed a point and if they push us a little can get all 3 points.
So as the subtitle says "What Will Still Do Next" the issue isn't the quality of the squad, whatever anyone says, especially when you take into account that he does have Joe Aribo & Sam Edozie in the squad, in there case I don't buy the recent flimsy excuse from the manager that they missed a part of pre season training and therefore aren't fit, they trained with the squad and featured in pre season games and have been back in the squad for the last 6-7 weeks since the transfer window closed, the only reason that they aren't in the squad is Still's own stubbornness to ignore them as they had decided that they wanted to leave.
This is the game that the Southampton squad have to show that they have some of those attributes as they did against Bristol City for half the game and that they can cut out the ,mistakes and have a bit of luck, in fairness without two bad errors and a bit of luck we could have won, but we didn't and we lost the game.
So it is down to Will Still to now show why we appointed him in the first place, I don't want to hear about xG's bad luc, injuries or anything else, travelling to Blackburn Still has all the tools he needs for his team to win the game, it is now his managerial skill and input that we need, I am sick of sitting there wondering what our formation actually is and then seeing scattergun substitutions confuse things even more.
Still has in the past month or so seemed to have chosen his favoured players and left others on the bench, but it hasn't worked, the table doesn't lie.
So is Will Still adaptable enough to see where he is going wrong, is he big enough to make big decisions or is he going to follow the path Russell Martin did and stick with his guns and keep heading towards the iceberg before he goes down with his ship.
Personally I hope that this is the game he surprises me and shows he has something about him, so far I have not mentioned respect and I don't see a squad that as of yet, respects him.
Time to start to use certain players more often, Finn Azaz has to be given a run in the side to show he is the man for the job that he did so well last season for Middlesbrough.
I am not yet at the point of calling for the managers head, football is a fickle mistress as they say, it can change quickly, but we are currently on a downward spiral, 18th in the League only 12 points from 11 games and more to the point, only 2 points from our last 3 games, 6 points from our last 6 games, whatever way you look at it the trajectory is downwards.
But there is a long way to go, if things don't change soon then the questions will be asked about the manager, how long does he get is the biggest, what will be the straw that breaks the donkey's back, a win over Blackburn will be a great boost, a defeat is unthinkable.
The sands of time are running down, each week we seem to get further away from our aim of automatic promotion or even the play offs, things have to change and change quickly !