There is no way to dress this up or try to look for positives, this was a Saints team devoid of leadership and passion.
From the very start Saints looked like a team with no leadership, there was no one out on the pitch who showed any leadership qualities and there seemed to be little from the sidelines.
The players themselves did not look motivated and seemed to be waiting for Liverpool to score and put them out of their misery, when the opening goal did come it was slack play from Dusan Tadic, what he was doing dribbling across the edge of hs own box is anyones guess, Forster had no hope from a perfect curling shot from Salah.
In fairness the second goal was probably offiside, but again Saints were all at sea and it was no surprise, in fact the only surprise was that Liverpool only added one more after the break.
But I have to say i cannot remember such a lifeless, gutless, leaderless, passionless performance from a Saints side, even last season we not produce a display like this and I think you have to go back to our first season back in the Premier League five years ago for the last time a Saints team walked on a pitch with such a lack of motivation.
Each player seemed to be playing far below 100% effort, Virgil Van Dijk was arguably our best defender, but he wasn't really interested, he was going through the motions, he was comfortable but didn't seem to be bothered about extending himself.
This was the case with virtually all of the players, they could comfortably hold Liverpool for most of the game, but they didn't have that extra effort and motivation at key times, they were happy to coast.
This is the worry, the squad is not bad, it just seems to have had every ounce of confidence and passion beaten out of it lately, the manager appears to have lost the dressing room and there is very rarely any way back after that.
It is fine for some to rant and rave about this being our worst time ever etc, but we have to look at the root cause and it seems to be down to the manager and his inability to set up his sides to play to the strengths of the players he has.
I am very loathe to call for a managers head, I cautioned against this last season with Puel, I said he needed time, but back then the issues were ones that might have been rectified, sadly I can't see any way forward with the current manager at the moment, he seems to be a rabbit stuck in the headlights and unable to be decisive.
This is not a bad Saints squad, I have to reiterate that, but it needs leadership, that starts at the top, Les Reed and Ralph Krueger have to make a tough decision and they have to make it fast, sometimes you have to, before things spiral and get out of control.
It seems that they have made a bad appointment, but their are not the first to do so in football and won't be the last, it is always about what you do next, there is a time to stay cool and not make knee jerk decisions, but there is also a time to be decisive and that is now !
Next Sunday's game is now crucial, it is a six pointer, Saints win and they go up the table and can start to perhaps edge away from the drop zone, but lose it and the crowd will turn and will demand the managers head.