It cannot be dressed up any other way as Saints dropped into the bottom two on Friday night, the last month or so has been a disaster and now we have to beat Everton to stay in touch with the sides above us.
Saints have already taken two steps forward since that awful night a couple of weeks ago, sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to be able to move forward and the hope is that the Leicester game has been a wake up call.
But having lost that game we all have to consign it to history, forget it and look only to the future, the players and the fans have to be as one and create an atmosphere in which we can win games of football as we did last year when we beat Everton, Spurs & Wolves at home in front of a partisan crowd.
In the second half against Leicester the hard core got behind the team and they need to do that again, football supporters can change matches, we need to make today on of thos occasions.
Everton arrive with problems of their own, they are down the bottom of the Premier League with us, they have spent the money that some Saints fans have said the club should have been spent at St Mary's, but it has not brought them success or indeed much better times than us.
The question today is whether their problems will overawe them or be a catalyst for a revival, exactly th situation Saints are in, the awful injury to Andre Gomes could unite their squad and players and spur them on, as much as every Saints fan wishes Gomes well and sympathises, we cannot let them use it to their advantage.
The team that played at Manchester City is the foundation for the side Ralph Hasenhuttl should put out today with perhaps a subtle change or two, the good news is that Moussa Djenepo should play some part, personally I would like to see him come off the bench, use his pace against tiring legs.
Patience is needed, there is no quick cure at the moment, we have to earn our right to play, we do not have a god given right to win games, if we are to pull ourselves out of this mess we all have to be as one and pull together and stay with the team no matter how badly it is going, there was no way we could come back from 5-0 down at half time against Leicester, but 2-0 could be a different matter.