The win at Ipswich last weekend, prompted hope that Ivan Juric was finally moving his team in the right direction, but the days following that win have perhaps exposed frictions that seem to lie within the camp.
This weekend will mark two months since Russell Martin was sacked, but have we really moved forward since then ?
We have played 8 Premier League games since that defeat against Tottenham Hotspur that saw Martin removed from his job, in the first of those we got a draw at Fulham in front of the watching Ivan Juric who was awaiting his work permit.
That brought hopes that with a new manager hopefully ditching or at least watering don the 100% possession football game, that we could kick start the season and at least make a fight of trying to stay in the Premier League.
But then followed 6 games prior to the Ipswich win that saw us alternate between good and bad often in the same game, team selections seemed random and puzzling and substitutions even more so, at Manchester United we dominated the game for 80 minutes and then threw it away after some strange changes by the manager, a few days later at Nottingham Forest it was the mirror opposite, a woeful starting XI similar to the team that finished the game at Old Trafford gave away 3 goals by half time and the substitutes came on and almost snatched a draw.
The following game against Newcastle saw us again all at sea for much of the game.
The Ipswich game again saw a puzzling starting line up and to be honest the result glossed over the first 87 minutes of the game, where we lacked leadership on the pitch and were a disjointed side, we could have easily been losing at half time and 3-1 down by the time Tall Paul scored in the 87th minute.
OK we weren't and it was just a relief to have ended a run of 6 straight defeats since Ivan Juric had officially stood in the dug out.
Throughout this run we saw any fleeting chances of avoiding relegation slip out of the window, if we had held on at Old Trafford & won and got a draw at Forest then we would have been in with an outside chance, now it is just about as impossible as it can be without mathematical surety.
Throughout this time we consoled ourself by the fact that we had the foundations of a side who could mount a serious promotion campaign, Adam Armstrong might not be prolific in the Premier League, but in the Championship he certainly was, Flynn Downes likewise, a yard slow in the Premier perhaps, but up to speed in the 2nd tier.
But after the transfer window closed, the veneer of a squad building for next season was scraped away and it appeared that in Ivan Juric we had a manager who was looking to tear apart and completely rebuild rather than evolve the squad.
If the fans thought that we had kept our powder dry in January to spend in the summer when we would build on the foundation of those staying with the proceeds of those leaving for big fee's it seems we were wrong.
It was revealed that Flynn Downes desperately wanted away, so much so that he appears to now be at odds with the manager and Juric is not a man who is known for his diplomatic talents.
Adam Armstrong was also keen to get away and that was even more worrying, given that he is now probably the best striker in the Championship now he is at West Brom for the rest of the season, he might not be Premier League quality, but he is still the best striker that we had.
Likewise others shipped out Sam Amo-Ameyaw is an up and coming talent, but given little chance and it seems we would rather grab £10 million now as the option to buy clause states, than use him.
It seems that Juric sees senior professionals as a threat, why else would he try to ship out Armstrong & Downes & ignore players with experience such as Adam Lallana & Charlie Taylor & put is faith in Sulemana & Paul Onuachu, players who have not cared much for Southampton FC over the last two years.
The side against Burnley seemed to be Juric making a point, Bree, Sulemana, Manning & Onuachu all playing a part, whilst the likes of Lallana, Fraser, Taylor, Downes, & Bella-Kotchap, all players who have experience were either ignored on the bench or not in the squad.
Likewise the team selection, Bella-Kotchap & Nathan Wood on the bench, but we played with only one recognised central defender, but 4 full backs and at times Joe Aribo appearing to play a hybrid role between midfield & central defence..
It was an absolute shambles, but the writing has been on the wall.
What is becoming clear is that all is not well in the Southampton camp, good players want away and those that don't really care for the club are still being picked despite failing to deliver on a consistent basis.
Ivan Juric has a reputation as a manager who has his own way of doing things and if they don't go his way then all hell breaks loose.
Torino aside where he spent 3 years, either side of that is a story of sackings and short times in charge at the club, indeed his last club before St Mary's was only 12 games at Roma.
So are we going backwards under Juric, Russell Martin had to go, he should have gone two months before he did, but under him at least in the main you knew what you were going to see, a side that was underperforming due to his possession football tactics.
The feeling was that change that and we could make a fight of the relegation battle, the Fulham game under a caretaker manager seemed to have backed that theory up, but since then we have moved backwards not forwards.
Russell Martin averaged 0.31 points per game in his 16 games in charge, Ivan Juric's win over Ipswich gives him an average of 0.42, there is little difference at present.
We needed a manager to come in and take the squad and make it better, play to their strengths and bring leadership and organisation to the squad, we have none of that, just chopping and changing and a squad that is now weaker after the transfer window than it was before, given those who have left and those who sit in limbo and in some cases can't even get on the bench.
We now have a side with no identity, with a manager whose entire faith is based on Tall Paul & Sulemana, with the rest of the squad perhaps at best non-plussed by it all.
How has this all come about ? a lack of leadership off it, those on the board who are not tough enough and experienced in football enough to make decisive decisions.
The arrival of Johannes Spors, does not seem to change much, he reports to CEO Phil Parsons, who has been notable by his absence most of the season and he is joint with Mark Bitcon who mysteriously had his title changed to Director of Football Operations.
We are just shuffling the pack here, we need a decisive Director of Football, not a hybrid role split between 2 people, the buck on the footballing side has to stop somewhere and ultimately it has to come down to one man.
So I am afraid that I am not very optimistic from what I am seeing coming out of St Mary's at the moment, I am seeing people in charge with the day to day running of the club without enough experience and more importantly no real demarcation in who is responsible for what.
I see a playing squad that is now fast losing it's spirit, players being marginalised and disgruntled, we are not one squad and manager going forward, a personal opinion, but I feel that the players believe in Ivan Juric even less than they did Russell Martin.
But the thing that scares me most is that I see a squad that was perhaps, better than the one that won promotion last season and with the real foundations to build on next term back in the Championship , being torn apart, ripped to shreds and my real fear is that a major rebuild is not conducive to getting up and running in a promotion push from word go next season.
With the likes of Downes, Armstrong, Fraser, Bednarek & Lallana in the squad we had experience, with the likes of Amo-Ameyaw, Edozie, Archer, Wellington, Edwards & Charles we had potential, and then Bazunu, Suguwara, Wellington, Smallbone, Manning & even Ross Stewart, you never know but they are all proven at Championship level.
There we had a squad who could compete, especially when you consider that we would have money in the bank from transfers to bring in a player or two in key positions .
Now I think a fair chunk of these will be gone in the summer.
So what next, as it stands I can see no progress with Ivan Juric, I hope I am proved wrong in the next few months, but I fear that I won't be, of course some players have to leave, but managers who evolve squads, usually do better than those that rip them apart and try to start from scratch.
As I said I hope I am proven wrong, but I don't think I will be, not from looking at Juric's managerial record and from what I have seen in the last two months.