There is no way to dress this game up, I can't fault our players for a lack of effort, but they were totally devoid of any form of leadership, motivation or for that matter a game plan, it is hard to see a way forward with Nathan Jones in charge at this moment.
Nottingham Forest came with a game plan, Saints appeared to have none, they looked a team that had no confidence in their manager's tactics, but did at least try to put in the effort, even though nothing seemed to go right for them.
Forest had a game plan, sit back and let Saints come at them and then go at them fast on the break, Nathan Jones had put out a rather strange team, 3 at the back and with two full backs playing as wing backs, one of them in Kyle Walker Peters can do that job, the other in Romain Perraud cannot.
In midfield he had the return of Romeo Lavia and JWP & Elyounoussi sitting in front of them with Sekou Mara & Che Adams up front.
Most fans wondered why Stuart Armstrong & Samuel Edozie weren't in the starting line up.
As mentioned Forest had their game plan and were sticking to it, Saints had no form of inspiration in their play to break them down.
Forest almost went ahead when Romain Perraud tried to shield the ball on the touchline and failed to do so, from the resulting break, Forest really should have gone ahead, hitting the bar when it looked easier to score.
Surely this should have rung alarm bells, our passing was awful and it was this that Forest were looking to exploit, Lyanco was the centre of the back three and his job was to move the ball to the midfield, in the 27th minute he had plenty of time to do so but gave a poor pass away cheaply, Forest broke quickly and scored their first away goal since the opening week of the season. It would be the first and only shot on target of the game by either team.
To put it bluntly this wasn't Lyanco's or the teams first appalling piece of passing.
But there was plenty of time on the clock to put things right, but there was no real pattern of play from Saints.
Time and time again they got the ball and moved forward but too often hit it long which was food and drink for Forest's defenders.
We had to little experience in the team to be able to break down the wall of yellow.
In the 65th minute there was a triple substitution, Perraud went off with Edozie coming on and at least we had an attacking option down the right, Sekou Mara had looked completely lost up front and on came Adam Armstrong. Strangely Romeo Lavia also came off to be replaced by Joe Aribo, this was panic measures and to be blunt at this stage we lost all form of shape.
Although we picked up the pace, the truth was we were playing to a system and although it wasn't working the manager seemed unable to change tact, we rarely got the ball through to any of the strikers nor did we create shooting positions.
Bizarrely it was the 85th minute before Nathan Jones mad another substitution, at last came on Stuart Armstrong whose first action was to fall over and have to give away a foul and a yellow card to ensure that the visitors didn't break again.
But it was a case of too little too late and despite effectively playing just two at the back and everyone else charging forward, even sheer weight of numbers produced nothing.
A word about referee Thomas Bramall, whilst the defeat cannot be blamed on him, the fact was he was appalling and lost control of the game, Forest got away with a series of petty fouls and also going down at every opportunity.
They run roughshod over the ref, at one substitution despite the player going off being only 10 yards from the Kingsland touchline and being blocked by Saints players who were pointing out to the ref that under the laws of the game he had to leave at the nearest point, the referee pulled the Saints players off him and allowed him to saunter virtually the whole width of the pitch to the dugout.
So if you account for this, various other Forest players going down injured, a lengthy stoppage to treat Che Adams and indeed 9 second half substitutions spread over 6 different timings, it would be fair to assume that there would be a substantial period of injury time, god knows how Mr Bramall only made it 4 minutes, that didn't even cover the substitutions let along the injuries and time wasting.
The crowd although silent at times stayed with the team and didn't get on it's back until the final whistle and in truth they had every right to boo the team off the pitch and more poignantly the manager too.
Being blunt it is hard to see where Nathan Jones goes forward after this, the squad is in disarray, I didn't meet a Saints supporter who has any confidence in him before this game, let alone after it.
He has had two months to gel the squad, he hasn't done this and indeed he seems to have made it worse rather than better in all departments, he spent a lot of time gesturing on the touchline, but there seemed to be little correlation between this and what was actually happening on the pitch.
18 years ago Rupert Lowe made a brave decision when he sacked Paul Sturrock after only 13 Premier League games, stating that he had got it wrong, this seems to be the case with Nathan Jones, are Rasmus Ankersen and Sport Republic big enough to do the same now.
Although things are bleak, the situation is not yet beyond repair, a win at Everton in the next game although not lifting us out of the bottom three could see us draw level on points with 17th and give us hope.
But time is running out, do we let Nathan Jones stay and risk seeing things get worse and beyond redemption or do we get rid of him now !