Saints have just come though one of the worst losing spells of their history, but there have been mitigating circumstances and that is the key parts of why we can now start to move forward again.
Losing six straight League games was not something we like to see, many will say it is the worst losing spell of our history and it terms of straight defeats it certainly is, but back in the 1990's we went through far worse spells.
Back in 1988/89 we went 15 league games without a win, losing 9 and drawing 6, although the worst losing run was only 5 games.
Another bad season was the start of 1993/94 when we lost 9 out of our first 11 game, we won the 4th and drew the 10th so never had more than 4 straight defeats in a row, but that is what I call a losing streak.
Dave Jones final season in charge in 1998/99 started off with 5 straight Premier league defeats and we achieved only a single point in the first 8 games, out of the first 17 games we managed only 2 wins and 10 points, Dave Jones will whinge about the way he was stood down as Saints manager that season due to his impending court case, but the record books will tell you exactly why he needed replacing.
So for us old campaigners, this 6 match losing streak is an unwanted record, but in the grand scheme of things means nothing.
But a look back at those seasons shows a marked difference between the situation then and now.
Back then we were getting beat with our full side, yes of course we might have had the odd injury every now and then, but essentially it was our full side out week in week out, that of course was very worrying and hard to see a way out of it in any of those seasons.
But this season is different, not only because of the current situation, but because the injury streak was not our full squad getting beaten week in week out, but a squad ravaged by injury and to a lesser extent suspension.
There are mitigating circumstances as to why we have been beaten including VAR decisions that were plainly wrong and of course just plain bad luck.
But we will get people back from injury, we will get the luck of the call from VAR at some stage and we will get just some plain old good luck at some point.
In that run though the spirit was always there, perhaps you could say that it wasn't so present at the Manchester United game, but even in that game just as we had dug in and were making a game of it, there then came a hammer blow to knock the stuffing out of us, not once but twice.
The good news was that the Chelsea game showed that the fight and spirit is still there, we are not a bad team, we are just one with a lot of issues beyond our control of late.
Some fans have accused Ralph Hasenhuttl of not having a plan B, that is wrong, he has plenty of plan B's but with so many injuries he hasn't had the personnel to implement them, when you are throwing on an untried teenager because that is all you have, then you have to keep your shape and formation that the side know, you can't revert to plan B's.
We are not out of the woods yet, on Saturday we had 6 experienced players out through injury, that is not going to get much better in the next few weeks, but hopefully by the time we travel to Bournemouth in the FA Cup we will have at least 3 of those injured back in the squad and fit again.
There is still a lot to play for this season, I read so much negativity on some social media platforms of late I wonder why these people bother following Saints, at the start of every season I don't go into it thinking we will win the title, I'm not naive enough to think if we spend £100 million it wll automatically get us into the top 6, I look around and see that even after the Big Six there are at least 5 clubs with bigger support and resources than Saints.
Football is not just as simple as throwing money at a problem, if it was then the League would follow a simple patter each and every season, so that means for Saints we have to try and compete on a level we can, not one that we can't.
Our success over the past 7 years and it has been success, aside from the aforementioned Big Six, few other clubs have been as consistent as us in that time, has been built on the Southampton Way, that means finding those with talent who are under the radar and have a hunger to succeed, improving them, using them to get us up the table and then repeating the process.
Saints current side is built on the likes of Stuart Armstrong, Jan Bednarek even Kyle Walker Peters and Che Adams, yes it is topped off by Danny Ings, but when we stick to what we do best we do well, when we try to buy our way to the top we go wrong.
So at this moment in time this season is going in the right direction, of course that losing run has set us back, but we are still only 6 points off the top 8 and we have a good chance of reaching the FA Cup semi finals.
Of course it is disappointing that we are not still in the top 10, but a win at Leeds would put us on the cusp and that is encouraging and an indication that at this stage of the season league positions mean nothing, it is how far you are away from what you are trying to achieve.
For me I think that par position in any season is probably 12th, there are the Big Six clubs and then sx others including Leicester, Everton etc who all have greater resources than us, so if we are going to base our potential on how much money is spent, then our par position is 12th
If Gao was investing in the club as some demand, or indeed a new owner came in, it would not alter our par position very much at least in the shot term, unless it was someone like Manchester City's owners.
So at the moment 12th is where we should be at the end of the season, but 7th is achievable and that is what we aim for, on top of that we want a good run in the Cup, a Cup win is the most achievable way of getting into Europe, so we should be looking to do it.
So set your targets at a achievable level when supporting Saints, I am not saying we will always be 12th in that pecking order, we can move higher, but throwing money at the squad by the owner is not what is going to get us up the table, the Southampton Way of doing things might just do that.
Hopefully we can get back to winning ways, but truthfully I would be happy if we won only 5 more games this season, two in the Premier league that see us to safety and then 3 in the FA Cup !