Sometimes it is difficult for local journalists to call out the football club they cover, under past regimes at times those that cover Saints for local media outlets have found themselves banned by the club for stating the truth as they see it, Adam Blackmore has shown he has his finger on the pulse.
Football clubs like the local media to tow the party line, if they don't then they sometimes find that they are banned by the club, a decade ago the Daily Echo found itself in just such a position when Nicola Cortese was Chairman, at the time some of the fanbase almost revelled in it, they did not like the Daily Echo's coverage and did not see the wider picture about freedom of speech in the media.
The local media and the football club have to work together, so in the main the coverage is a lot more sympathetic to the club and any given situation, than that you get in the national media.
After all the local journalist usual has a relationship with those he is criticising, that is true with Adam Blackmore of BBC Radio Solent, he covers every Saints game and will attend all press conferences and interview the manager on a daily basis, so his comments after the Brentford game will make that job extremely harder.
But he was only saying what the majority of fans think. whilst I have said from the moment than Nathan Jones arrived at the club, that the supporters should give him a chance before judging him, it is hard to now defend him after 3 months in the job, with few signs of consistent improvement.
It seems to me that everytime we seem to turn a corner, that we turn back round again and that is due to the managers team selections.
I will cut him some slack, we are conceding goals due to sloppy defending, whatever you think of Nathan Jones, there would not be many of his detractors who would suggest that in his pre match team talk that he instructs his defenders to give the opposition a free header at set pieces and corners, but that is what is happening and the manager is not to blame for that, but that is just about the only slack that can be cut.
Adam Blackmore in his article has dissected what he sees as going wrong and i have to say I agree with him.
Jones's press conferences are a car crash, he fires off machine gun style in all areas, he blames everyone for the woes, he is disrespectful to the players, disrespectful for the manager who went before him, that is unfair, Ralph Hasenhuttl had a lot less of a squad to work with over the past 3 years and did so with little transfer budget.
Jones of course inherited a squad from Hasenhuttl, the difference was that he inherited one that did not have the injury issues that Hasenhuttl had in his final two months, in short Jones should have hit the ground running, he didn't, we seemed to have wasted our six weeks World Cup break to get things right.
Jones seems to not know what his best side is, the players who have been brought in in January have not been used to their strengths so far, those already here are in and out of the side, Duje Caleta-Car was a big part of our wins against Everton & Manchester City, yet after serving a one match ban finds himself ostracised and playing in the B team, likewise Lyanco who unlike Caleta-Car at least was still in the squad for Brentford, he too finds himself out in the cold, in their places James Bree a players with no Premier League experience and the returning Jan Bednarek, that sends a great message to the squad.
Likewise his squad rotation, how on earth was Romeo Lavia playing 87 minutes against Blackpool on the Saturday and then on the bench for the visit of Newcastle in a League Cup semi final.
There is very definitely issues between the squad and the manager, a few weeks ago I though we had sorted that out and the team were playing for the manager, but then comes more chopping and changing and any spirit and momentum is lost.
The problem is that there is not time to sort these things out, we need results now, Everton saw the benefit of a managerial change, we should have seen that back in December, we didn't, we now have a situation where it is hard to find a Saints fan who will give the manager time, it seems that might well be the issue with the squad as well, they have given him a chance and do not like what they see.
Rumours from the past suggested that Jones was a bully, a shouter and a screamer and a ranter, you might get away with it in the lower leagues, but not with seasoned internationals in the Premier League.
The truth is we don't know what formation or team selection that Jones will make from week to week and that shows panic, going into Saturday's game against Wolves, it is virtually impossible to get his team selection right, just about the only guarantee is that James Ward Prowse will play, take away the goalkeeper and assuming that Kyle Walker Peters is still injured, that is 9 positions that could not be predicted and that is the problem, we flit from one formation to another and one player to another.
Likewise substitutions, they are scattergun, I am not going to get into a witch hunt against Theo Walcott, but his contributions or indeed lack of them did not justify his arrival on the pitch after 65 minutes at Brentford, not when we still had the likes of Adam Armstrong and Joe Aribo still on the bench, not to mention Mislav Orsic and Djenepo sat at home after playing for the B team the previous day.
I could go on and on, it is difficult to find anything to say to defend him and I am one at the more reasonable end of the consensus.
The club and indeed the owners may feel that Jones should be in charge for Saturday, they may think that is last chance saloon, but that is a big big gamble, whatever anyone says the atmosphere is going to be toxic, unless we go out and blitz them from the start then the longer the game goes on, the more restless some of the crowd will get, if we go a goal down I think there will be no coming back, the crowd will truly turn and will bring the team down.
I don't particularly agree with that, I think some are going only to see Jones fail and not succeed, I am not one of them, I want Saints to win on Saturday and the crowd turning on the manager is not going to help that, I would urge people to save their protests for after the game.
But having said that I cannot see any benefit with having Jones in charge at this moment, his presence on Saturday will not help the situation, perhaps Sport Direct are trying hard to find a successor, that is highly unlikely before Saturday, but I truly think we would be better with Reuben Selles in temporary charge than Jones.
The real problem is that Nathan Jones is not a leader of men, he believes in the stick and not the carrot, he thinks leadership is about driving people forward, not in the actual definition of the word which is leading them.
In his rant after the Brentford game he has shown, even admitted he is not in control, and that is worrying, very worrying, he has crossed a line with both the players and the fans that is virtually impossible to go back over, the big question is whether that is the same with the board and the owners.
We need a man at the helm who is calm and collected and has a plan he is going to follow. Jones has shown himself not to be that man, both in the past and now, when the local journalist is saying the same things and he sees a lot more behind the scenes than we the fans do, then you know that something is desperately wrong.
Adam Blackmore's comments can be read using the link below.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton