Saints go into the last two games of the season with their hopes of automatic promotion ended, even the hope of finishing 3rd is only a point away from being ended, but they do have something to play for and that is getting back the togetherness, character & fight Russell Martin has recently be moaned.

Just a week ago Automatic promotion looked a distinct possibility for Southampton, but two games later and it has been dashed and indeed the way we capitulated at Leicester suggested that this is a squad that is disenchanted with it's manager.

I don't blame individual players here, but the way that certain players have gone from being world beaters to looking poor is only down to one thing.

Two months ago Ryan Fraser looked unplayable, he was a vital member of our side, but chopping and changing him has shattered his confidence and knocked the fight out of him, he is far from being alone in this.

So now we face Stoke and although the result does not matter one iota, the manner of our performance does.

But the issue here is going to be the manager, he will do just what has been the problem in the first place, he will replace good players with inferior ones, he will change for changes sake and this will do nothing to restore the fight that he bemoans.

Indeed Russell Martin would do well to take a long had look at why his squad no longer has the togetherness, the Character and the fight that he says was lacking at Leicester.

In a professional football squad the players bring their talents, the man who builds that togetherness, character & fight to the table is the manager.

When he built the unbeaten run he did so on a solid first choice team that knew it's job and in the main played week in week out, the defence was tight, it was the same players week in week out, there was no squad rotation or giving people a game to keep them match sharp, it was KWP, THB, Jan Bednarek and then Manning or Bree, Mason Holgate even after a man of the match performance couldn't even get a game off the bench.

But that all changed in January and from then on we were struggling, perhaps because we had too many options, the manager was determined to play certain players, not just the obvious, but David Brooks for instance, there is clearly an agreement with Bournemouth that Brooks has to have game time and that has cost us, I like Brooks as a player, but his performances of late haven't justified his selection of late, the casualty here has been Ryan Fraser who found himself on the bench when it was not deserved.

The bizarre decision to jump Alex McCarthy over Joe Lumley when he wasn't even in the squad, that sends a message to the squad and it unsettles them, players want surety, they want to know where they stand, this erodes that togetherness Character & fight.

So this is a big game for Russell Martin, we should be heading into the play offs with confidence, but we are heading into it a squad in turmoil and it is hard to see how we are going to turn that around quickly.

So the most important thing about the game against Stoke will be the team selection, it will be the first indication of whether Martin has the skills to turn this around.

The performance in this game will be more important than the result, can Martin pick the right players who will play for their own pride or has he alienated some key players and there will be no coming back.

Stoke themselves arrive with a nervous glance over their shoulder, with two games to go they are 4 points above the last relegation place, so they are not yet safe, it would take a big set of results to send them down, but defeat to us might well see them going into the final day still not safe.

What Russell Martin does next is key to this weekend, can he fire up the players, but just as important can he fire up the fans, we should be buoyant at this stage of the season, but it doesn't feel like that, it almost feels like we have been relegated.

We are still in with a great chance of promotion, but at the moment we have a manager who doesn't know what to do next, we have a squad and a fanbase that is disillusioned and at a low ebb.

It needs a catalyst to change this, I would be highly surprised if Russell Martin was sacked, but other than that how can things change.

There is hope, we have to go back to the 1990's when we fought relegation battles, back then we were awful for large parts of the season, sometimes under managers that were part of the problem, sometimes because we just didn't have the squads that others had.

But at the end of each season, the Saints supporters would be up for it, they would inspire the players, they would create that togetherness, that character and that fight that the Spirit Of Southampton as it was dubbed back then epitomised.

If Saints don't go up it will not be the fans fault, they have done everything and beyond this season, they have travelled in numbers up and down the country and expected this last week to be triumphal.

It isn't so now we have to get ourselves up for the last 4 games of the season and get the team to Wembley.

St Mary's tomorrow can either be a graveyard or it can be a cauldron of noise that gives the inspiration to our players that the manager clearly cannot manage to do.

Our current CEO seems to think that fervent supporters can be manufactured, supply a home end and we will immediately have a wall of sound, that is not the case, football support is not about manufacturing thins, it is about passion, against Stoke we need to show that we have passion, we need to instil it into our players, if for nothing else as I cannot see it coming from the manager.

Photo: Action Images

redwight added 10:06 - Apr 26 'Four games to go'. Maybe a premonition? Would prefer five.
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A1079 added 10:26 - Apr 26 I think RM needs to play the players that he is going to use in the playoffs because he needs to get them playing as a group again and they the players need to know that they are the ones that he has faith in to give us the best chance. The selection of McCarthy over Lumley was a really poor decision and sent the wrong message - I wonder how much that affected the feeling in the changing room. The message that RM gave out after the Cardiff game told everyone that he thrown in the towel from an automatic promotion perspective and that showed at Leicester in the players performance - loads of possession but no intent. I am going tomorrow, travelling down from Yorkshire. I appreciate Nick you giving a supportive message of the fans because tomorrow is sold out (whether everyone turns up is another matter - I have been in 2 minds despite buying the ticket but I will go in hope that we see a different attitude on the pitch). The Saints fans support has been great this season home and away (accepting our vocal support has not always been as good as it could be). We have been there and we have been there in numbers and how let down those that went to Leicester on Tuesday must have felt. As usual the players trotted out the same old stuff after a bad defeat about letting us down and must do better. Heard it all before after a bad defeat and you usually get a brief response and then they lapse back. I just hope the players get it as well as I am not convinced they all do or have the same desire - after all, to some it won't matter whether we challenge for promotion or not because they will just play out their loans or move on anyway. Overall I have enjoyed this season and it has been good to watch and be a part of. It has gone a bit sour since the Easter period and there is a sense that the manager and the team have lost their way and motivation. It will be interesting to see not just how we react tomorrow but in the playoffs - will we be lions or mice?

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stmichael added 10:41 - Apr 26 Might be the worst article you have ever written…
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WestSussexSaint added 13:00 - Apr 26 I realise everyone is entitled to their opinion but this site regularly presents itself as being in tune with the fan base. I don’t know how you can suggest that the fan base is feeling like we have been relegated. Yes there is a degree of disappointment at recent results which have meant we missed out on automatic promotion. But this is nothing like the feeling I and most fans experienced last season when each week we turned up to watch expecting to get beaten regardless of the opposition. We are in the playoffs and on balance this season the fan experience has been ten times better than recent seasons in the PL because we have been competitive and winning most of the time. So I for one hope we are promoted but even if we are not will be thankful to the management and team for bringing som joy back to SMS this season. Protestations that the fan base are bereft with the current side are way off the mark (in my opinion).

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TimSaint added 13:32 - Apr 26 Fraser had the confidence, life and everything else kicked out of him against Millwall - their game plan was purely to target Fraser and after 4 bad fouls on him, he was forced off injured and hasn't been the same since.
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JoeEgg added 15:11 - Apr 26 " Protestations that the fan base are bereft with the current side are way off the mark (in my opinion)." Not so sure of the truth of this statement. If we lose to Stoke and/or go on to miss out on promotion through the play-offs, I hope the vast majority of our fan base will realise the utter stupidity of playing the RM tippy tappy stuff with players neither good enough nor happy to play it. We are not a Prelier Lea

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JoeEgg added 15:21 - Apr 26 " Protestations that the fan base are bereft with the current side are way off the mark (in my opinion)." Not so sure of the truth of this statement. If we lose to Stoke and/or go on to miss out on promotion through the play-offs, I hope the vast majority of our fan base will realise the utter stupidity of playing the RM tippy tappy stuff with players neither good enough nor happy to play it. We are not a Premier League side and it was not asking a lot extra from our players to win more games this season in the Championship. If next season we lose our best players and get a new selection of spares from the likes of clubs like Bournemouth, we shall soon start to struggle. Playing Stoke at the weekend might help remind a few supporters that their decline started when they failed to gain immediate promotion back to the Premiership.

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LordDZLucan added 15:29 - Apr 26 Other teams have got better at nullifying us as the season has gone on. They learn from the first time they played us as well as from watching how other sides achieve success against us. Therefore I think we need to be more flexible in our tactics. Our full backs tend to be very good at attacking but not so good at defending. I would therefore be tempted to play 3 centre backs thereby allowing KWP and RM to play further up the pitch where they are more comfortable and effective. I know we’ve tried this before this season but we didn’t give it a proper go. The next 2 games are an opportunity to try to bed it in properly.

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saintmark1976 added 17:58 - Apr 26 It’s not so much about team selection Nick, although I agree that for much of the season Russell Martin’s choices have been utterly incomprehensible in this regard. The problem is his inability to see that there are ways of playing football other than his tippy tappy nonsense. Witness Tuesday when he achieved 63% ball possession but without a single shot on goal. Any half decent manager would have seen that he had been found out after the Huddersfield home game when they attacked us and scored three goals in the first half. Yes, we won but ever since then every other half decent team has seen a way of succeeding against his sole method of play and that’s what has cost us automatic promotion. In my opinion whatever happens tomorrow is irrelevant. It’s now entirely evident that Russell Martin can’t or more likely won’t change his method of play. This being the case he is now a dead man walking, it matters not whether we stay in The Championship or obtain promotion through the playoffs. Either way I hope that Russell Martin’s time at S F C is coming to a close.

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SanMarco added 19:21 - Apr 26 I can't speak for the 'fanbase' but I know I am far from the only one uneasy with RM's 'philosophy'. Tippy-tappy can only be said to have worked if we end up doing better than we would have playing other more dynamic styles. We will never know that of course, it is the road not taken, but I would conclude that more good chances to score have been handed to the opposition than have been created by us as a result of tippy-tappy. There is nothing wrong with possession-based play as part of a strategy but when it becomes the only goal of our play it is too easy to play against and prepare for. Stoke know how we will play and they will plan accordingly. If we beat them it will be because we have better players - not because we played tippy-tappy.

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