Saints have made a few mistakes in recent years, but things have changed and the fans need to get behind Ralph Hasenhuttl and the club and trust them to get it right this summer.
The recent announcement of the signing of Moussa Djenebo was greeted by most on social media as a positive move, but there was still a fairly high proportion of cynical & negative comments mainly in the line of if he does well then he will be a Liverpool player in the next two years.
I can see why people would say that, but it is getting a bit tiresome now, the club has moved on from it's mistakes of the past two years, the people that those supporters were blaming for the transfer mistakes have now left the club and we have at the helm of the team Ralph Hasenhuttl a man used to working at clubs such as Saints and well versed in the job needed here.
So it is time to move forward and put the past behind us and look to the future.
People now talk of the golden times of 2014-16 under Ronald Koeman but forget the total meltdowns by some on social media in the summers of 2014 & 2015, back then suddenly every departing player was a world beater and every new arrival sub standard to those who went before.
The truth of the matter is that the Premier League has changed drastically in those 5 years, it is a case of the rich getting richer and the rest of us slipping further behind, look at that season five years ago, we had a Big Five back then and then Everton & Spurs vying to be the sixth club hoping that someone would slip up and they could sneak in.
In 2013/14 Everton finished 5th 3 points ahead of Spurs, there was nothing between them as clubs, both had potential, but both sat in similar size stadiums and were unable to truly grow their fanbase either in terms of numbers or financially.
Now the gulf between them is massive, Everton finishing 8th, 17 points behind Spurs who also reached the Champions League final.
This highlights the magnitude of Saints task going forward and how breaking into the top six is virtually impossible such is the power of that Big Six.
So we have to adapt and accept both as a club and as supporters, our targets have to be realistic and stretching, forget the arrogant boasts of Nicola Cortese, we were never going to be a top four club, look at the number of clubs outside of the current Big Six who have managed that in the last 20 years and it is basically Leicester, Everton & us , the game has moved.
So that means that as a club we have to adapt and that seems to have happened over the past 8 months or so, there have been changes in the boardroom and changes in the team management and so far all look positive.
Our transfer strategy is solid but it has had to adapt and it suffers from the fact that 5 years ago it was now groundbreaking, now all the other clubs have a version of it.
But it is not fallible and there will always be failures, yes some have been expensive, but you can say that our four big failures have all been panic buys and we have paid the price for going off piste from our usual blueprint in looking for big money signings to appease the fans, we have tried to make so called big money marque signings rather than players with potential and hungry for success.
This is nothing new, remember Gaston Ramirez and Osvaldo !
Moussa Djenepo harks back to the summer of 2014 when we signed the likes of Sadio Mane and Pelle to name but two, neither were houshold names but both had potential and we unlocked it.
We need to do get back to those basics again and it seems we have.
Yes the cynics will say that we are only fattening them up for Liverpool to move in when they have proved themselves and they are right, but that is football these days and we as fans have to accept that and as a club we have to work it to our advantage and we have to do that because we have no choice.
Gone are the days when a sheik or Russian ogliarch could roll up and pump multi millions into a club and in truth the few that did chose their clubs well, the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City, clubs with big stadiums and big supporter bases that could be farmed.
The train has now left the station on this one, the Big Six are light years ahead of even the likes of Everton who have missed the boat and are five years behind even being able to mount a serious challenge to the BIg Six.
Our job as a club is to keep doing what we have done for the past five years. but keep doing it well, yes there will be a big turnover of players if we do well, but personally I would rather see us find another Virgil Van Dijk and sell him for 7 times what we paid after enjoying two years of relative success than sign ordinary players who stay for 8 years.
If a player is here for 8 years then the truth is he is not up to the standard we need, this is a harsh fact of life, we have to accept that and be realistic. The Premier League has been full of teams over the years like Stoke & West Brom, clubs were they are not selling their players for big money for a good reason, no one has wanted to buy them, eventually they pay the price.
Ralph Hasenhuttl has spoken of how we have scouted Djenepo for the last six months, this is what we do well,
Our aim is to establish ourselves as a top 10 club season in season out and then as the 7th club pushing for a Europa League spot and a cup final or two, we were on track for that 3 years ago but lost our way.
But as I said the key personnel in our last two seasons of struggle our no longer here, so let's give the new people from Gao Jisheng downwards a chance to show that they are the people to lead us forward, if we want the key players to succeed then we have to support them.
So let's make this a summer of positivity, the green shoots of that recovery are there, we can't let them be trampled by negativity, successful people surround themselves with positive people.
If Saints fail in the transfer window and do not address the key areas we need to then I will be the first to complain, but I will not do that till the transfer window has slammed shut.
But all indications are that Saints are working hard but quietly on their intended targets, so let us let them get on with that.
The Ugly Inside has always sought to give an opinion, it is not a website that merely rehashes tweets or instagram messages and claims them as news, we are not afraid to give our opinion even when it is not the popular one, but we always try to justify why we have made it.
I am a Saints supporter, I want to be proud of the club, proud of the City and proud of Saints supporters, I do not want to see it being a standing joke, but more to the point I do not want to see a section of our own supporters being the ones that make it so.
So let's show some trust in the club to get it right !