Everytime Saints concede a goal or lose a game the knives are out on social media and it creates problems not solutions.

The defeat at Liverpool once again brought out mass hysteria on social media from supporters who again had plenty of opinions about where the problems lie, but not a clue about the solutions.

When I write stories such as this one, the first stock answer I get is that it is not the supporters fault and I shouldn't blame them !

That is 100% correct, I have never said that the supporters are to blame for anything that goes wrong, however I have always maintained that they have to be part of the solution not part of the problem and that means firstly giving the team a chance to settle in and show their worth and secondly getting off the back of certain individuals in it.

I seem to spend half my time these days writing stories that in pointing out certain facts have to point the finger of blame elsewhere and that is not good either.

Wesley Hoedt seems to be the whipping boy of many, yet has he really put too much of a foot wrong ?

The answer is not really, yes he got an own goal at Liverpool where he could have done better, but in that incident he was one of four Saints players who were just as culpable and he was not at fault for any of the other two goals.

Against Brighton Hoedt didn't do much wrong, indeed he made the tackle of the match in the first half, but still the knives are out, Jannik Vestergaard will hopefully become the player he sometimes looks, but in the central pairing he has cost us more goals than Hoedt so far.

But they both need time to bed in, like it or not they and Benarek are the future of the club, those that slag them off forget the soft goals we have conceded since both Fonte and VVD left, they forget who was at fault and why we had to buy new, perhaps neither Hoedt of Vestergaard are truly the future, but going back to the past certainly isn't, these two have to be given a fair chance to forge a partnership, then and only then can we judge, certainly not after only a handful of games together.

Mark Hughes has just as big a task as last season, he has to try and rebuild confidence and morale that has been destroyed over two seasons, that clearly can't be done overnight and this is where the fans come in.

A defeat against the most in form team in Europe at the moment is not the end of the World, 3-0 doesn't look great on the scoresheet, but those at the game will tell you it wasn't the rout that those who have only seen the highlights will tell you, Liverpool were restricted to only 4 shots on target, that should tell us something about our defending.

We defended far worse at Anfield when we won 1-0 in the 2nd leg of the League Cup semi final.

But both of those games are in the past now, we have to move forward and this is where the fans can truly help or hinder, we have to create that siege mentality that got us through the bad times in the 1990's, back then we did plenty of moaning and protesting, but we also did plenty of supporting, we knew the squad wasn't strong so as supporters we did our bit and that enabled us to survive in the top flight and move to St Mary's.

It has always been a bumpy ride for Saints, but we have to look at what the Premier League is these days, just how much ahead of us the Big Six club's are in every respect and look to how we can compete.

We won't always get it right, there is not a football club in England that does, but because we aren't getting it right doesn't mean that we are getting it totally wrong.

For some everything is rotten about the club these days, even when there is no evidence to suggest otherwise, just because things aren't perfect on the pitch doesnt mean the wole club is failing.

This is not happy clapping, it's just reasoned thinking, Chairman Gao is royally slagged off by some, despite the fact that all he has done is come in and look to evolution rather than revolution.

Ralph Krueger as Chairman has overseen a massive overhaul over the past 4 years or so, just because one of his heads of department hasn't done the job properly doesn't mean all the other departments are failing.

But supporters are only interested in one thing and that is what they see on the pitch, nothing wrong in that, but today's supporter takes to social media and soon rumour and innuendo seem like absolute truth.

So we stand at a threshold, we got away with it last year, we have a reprieve, do we grasp that reprieve and accept that things take time to rebuild, or do we keep smashing away at the foundations day in day out to help them eventually crumble.

No one is saying that when things go wrong there should not be protest, there should not be dissent, but last year was our only bad year out of the last five seasons, the club deserve a chance to turn it round.

At the games the support has been superb both home and away, especially away, the supporters have got behind the team, but you go on social media and it is constant sniping at everything concerned with the club, mainly from people that spent most of last year telling anyone that would listen that they would not be renewing their season tickets this year because they were not being entertained.

I have nothing against that, it is everyone's right to do what they want, but if you want to do that then don't keep on about it after you have gone, I'm sick of it, I would rather be left in peace to get on with supporting the club, if you care enough to comment on social media then care enough to turn up and support the club when it needs it, anyone can support a football team when it's doing well, it's when the chips are down that counts.

So whilst I'm certain this rant will change nothing on social media, hopefully for those of us who go to the games, it will help us focus, we need to make the loudest voices heard saying "Come on Saints" and not "F***ing hell Saints" as the latter seems to have become the default method of backing the team long ago.

If you disagree with me, think that everything is rotten about the club and tell me that you love the club, but can't back Krueger & Reed etc etc, then if you care do something positive about it, in the 1990's we did and changed a lot of things, but back then there was no social media so we had to get off our arses to protest and there don't seem too many willing to do that these days !

Photo: Action Images

SaintBrock added 14:39 - Sep 28 Like it or not our briefly lived ambition flourished and died with Marcus Liebherr. Everything has gone downhill since he passed away.
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