Ralph Hasenhuttl made it quite clear after the draw against Bournemouth last weekend ensured our safety that his priority was now rebuilding for next season, this was his first pre season game for next year not the penultimate one of this.
I heard some ranting after Saints collapse up at the London Stadium on Saturday and whilst I can understand the frustrations of some, they needed to put the game into perspective, unlike a year ago at the same venue when we were a desperate side trying to save our selves, this season that job has already been done and Ralph Hasenhuttl made it quite clear he was looking towards next season.
That being the case he picked a side to give some of those players who have not forced their way into his side on a regular basis, hence we saw perhaps our two best players of the last few months on the bench in James Ward Prowse and Nathan Redmond and the likes of Mo Elyounoussi starting.
Perhaps though the Austrian manager might have been better waiting a week when he would be facing a less potent side with respect to Huddersfield rather than change the side to visit West Ham when his weakest area of the team central defence is already missing two usual starters.
But the manager made his choice and rightly or wrongly it does not make a blind bit of difference to this season, however it will have told him a lot about next and that was the purpose of the exercise, he wanted to see how certain players would respond and he got his answers.
I'm not going to pull out individuals in this game, I have spent two seasons doing that, we all know what is wrong and what needs putting right, the manager is in a lot better place himself after this game, would we rather we played our first team and got a point ? we would still be in the same position today, but we would have learn't nothing.
We need to start getting a bit of optimism back, Ralph Hasenhuttl has performed a minor miracle in not just keeping us up but creating a team spirit in the squad that leads us to hope we can achieve much more last season.
For the last five years it seems every change is greeted by meltdown and an outbreak of optimism, yes there have been some troubled times but they have been outweighed by the good, no one has sold us down the river yet so why not have a bit of faith that under Ralph Hasenhuttl we can achieve something, but we have to trust him to do it his way and his way was what we saw on Saturday.
I for one am looking forward to next season, I am pleased that Hasenhuttl has started to make his plans already and that included throwing in a few fringe players on Saturday to give them a last chance to show what they can do, Ralph is up and running for net season, sadly some can't see that and would have preferred us to wait until the end of this season before we start to plan next..
I know some will say that they didn't pay £30 to watch a reserve team, I can understand that , but most who went Saturday are the hard core who go home and away week in week out, most I spoke to would gladly sacrifice that £30 for a top ten finish next year, it's about the bigger picture.