When Ralph Hasenhuttl arrived at Southampton the team was in disarray after three managers in the space of 16 months, but he has brought back stability to the club, now he has to be given the time to complete the task he started back in December 2018.
When Ralph Hasenhuttl arrived at Saints, they were a club who the previous season had only escaped relegation in the final week of the season and back in December 2018 things did not look good, Saints were already in a relegation dogfight and Mark Hughes had made a pigs ear of the start to the season.
Not only that but the squad was top heavy with players who had arrived for big fee's and salary's and were not playing to the standard that was expected.
But the Austrian came in and turned things around and began what was never going to be a short term task of rebuilding a squad, but with so many players taking wages out of the kitty and not contributing being hampered by having little funds to do so.
But after his half season success in turning things around, he has now had two full seasons in which he has achieved finishes of 11th and 15th in the Premier League, plus an FA Cup semi final, not something that has happened a lot in most Saints fans lifetimes.
Last season ended in disappointment after promising so much, but the side that slid down the table from the top spot it had occupied earlier in the season was not the same side, it was one ravaged by injuries and the slide was beyond the control of the manager.
Now the financial shackles are loosening at St Mary's and big wages have been got off the books enabling new players to be bought and the squad to start to be strengthened.
Yes the start to the season was always going to be difficult, the corresponding 8 fixtures with which we opened last season yielded just 3 points and we have already got more than that with one fixture to go of what has been a tough opening spell.
These first 8 were never going to be the ones that define the season, however the next 8 might well be !
So those calling for Hasenhuttl to go are being very short sighted, he has brought a stability to the club that has been lacking since Chris Nicholl was sacked over 30 years ago, indeed amazingly Ralph is already the longest serving manager since Nicholl left in 1991.
This perhaps highlights why we have underperformed for much of the last three decades, no manager aside from Ralph has managed to stay over 2 1/2 years and so we have lurched from one regime to another.
The Austrian has done a superb job in very difficult circumstances and it is hard to see who would have done better with the situation he had to work under.
Money is not the answer to Saints problems in a Premier League where spending guarantees you nothing these days unless you have a Russian oligarch or Middle Eastern Royal Family member owning the club.
These days it is very easy to start shouting for the managers head the moment something has gone wrong, but that is very short sighted, a year ago Saints and Brighton's positions were reversed, we were in the top 5 and the Seagulls hovering around the relegation zone.
Some Brighton fans were demanding the sacking of a manager who had taken them to their highest ever League finish in 2019/20, but after a poor start to the season was criticised for having no charisma, he pulled things round and this season his team have prospered.
Now some Saints fans have forgotten what Hasenhuttl did a year ago and are saying he should go.
But as I said earlier the first 8 games were always going to be tough, indeed we have played 4 of the top 5 clubs, 2 more in the top half and only Newcastle of the teams likely to be in relegation trouble.
To get 4 points from those games so far is not bad going, not great in terms of points, but given the teams we have played ok.
I am not saying that Ralph has not made mistakes, sometimes I think some of his selections are baffling, but he has learned from his mistakes and he has not been afraid to change things around both in terms of personnel and formation.
I am not saying that Ralph Hasenhuttl should never be sacked, I am only saying now is not the time to do it, his critics will point to the second half of last season, but that was largely a situation he could not control.
The next 8 games will go a long way to showing whether the Austrian is the man to take us forward or not, but he has to be given that time, he deserves it for the way he has soldiered on in difficult circumstances.
Now the purse strings have loosened a little, we are building a squad of some good young players and we seem to have sorted out our recruitment process's.
Of course we would all like an owner who could put in money, but we should be careful what we wish for, Burnley were sold a year ago and many lamented why we could not attract rich American owners, since then a once debt free club has been leveraged to put the cost of the purchase on the club itself and they are in the bottom three.
The real worry though is just who we could get in, there seems to be two default choices, managers with a reputation who have occasionally done it but mainly not, think Mark Hughes and topically Claudio Ranieri who has just joined Watford or those that have never done it in the first place, think Eddie Howe the former Bournemouth manager, ironically many who claim the club has no ambition to do anything but survive are usually those that are suggesting that Howe a man whose best year with Bournemouth is not much better than the 15th we achieved last season.
Overall though it is about stability and changing manager every time there is a crisis is not always the best solution, at the moment there is nothing wrong that a couple of wins won't put right and we now have a run of games where we can get those wins.
When we have played 16-19 games we will know where this season is going, then is the time that we may have to take a hard look at the manager, until then we should have the faith in him that he has shown he has deserved in nearly 3 years in charge.