A disappointing defeat at Goodison Park as once again Saints struggled to score goals or even create chances.
It would be easy to take the view that some Saints fans took up on Merseyside on Saturday and pour out vitriolic abuse at Graziano Pelle and blame all Saints woes on him, but that would be wrong.
The issue that Saints have is creating chances rather than scoring them, this was a game where despite having the lions share of pressure Saints rarely looked like creating a decent chance let alone scoring one, the only save of the game came after 6 minutes when Tim Howard somehow clawed out Pelle's effort from under his own bar and that just about summed up the Italian' luck in front of goal, after that the fans inside Goodison would not see another save of note.
So where are Saints going wrong ? well it is not as some fans would have you believe all the fault of Pelle, he was isolated for most of the afternoon with barely a decent ball to get on the end of, yes Everton are a good workmanlike side and stop you playingbut the real problem Saints have is that there is no one in midfield who is ale to create.
Schneiderlin and Wanyama dominate and win the ball but they cannot seem to create or even get in goal scoring positions themselves, James Ward Prowse seems to be the man who should take on the mantle of creator but he is not quite ready yet and Dusan Tadic is off the boil.
Add to that we cannot seem to get the full backs forward enough of late and we are struggling to create.
Of course tree is an element that the opposition are getting used to our style now and that is something that we have to come to terms with, but when it comes down to it we are a good workmanlike side, but we need someone who can play the ball and create those chances.
Saints did not deserve to lose to Everton, they had more of the ball and controlled the game from start to finish, the only chance the home side had was when they scored, but as comfortable as we looked we could not seem to look like scoring.
The only plus point is that with Liverpool losing and Spurs drawing it was not a disastrous weekend, however it has been a weekend where the hope of the Champions League ended, however there is still much to play for and Saints have a very good chance of finishing fifth which should now be the target.
What is needed though is unity and that was not the case on Saturday when a sizeable number of supporters vented their frustration in the direction of Pell with some very choice comments, I'm sorry to hark on about it but football is a team game an hurling personal abuse at a player is not supporting a team its just mob mentality, yes people have a right to an opinion, but we are supporters of the club and some need to look at the dictionary definition I'm afraid.
There is still a long away to go in this season, we still have some very winnable games, it can still be our best season in 30 years, what we need to do is make sure that we are in the top six at the end of it and that means creating an atmosphere for the team to play in not get on their backs.