Some Saints fans melting down to after Ralph Hasenhuttl dared to hint that the need to spend in the transfer window was not so desperate, add to that a home defeat and the panic button was being pressed by some.
So what did Ralph say that caused some to take to social media with comments like
"I heard a Ralph interview on the radio earlier today, that any incoming transfers were on hold for the time being."
The actual truth is he spoke at the Wolves pre match press conference and said:
"It’s not long ago that I said it’s important to bring somebody in, but the way the team has played in the last weeks, I wouldn’t say it’s changed my mind, but we have to be very careful with what we do.
"We have to think about how we do it because I think the team deserves credit for the very good job they are doing."
"We don’t do anything just because we have to do something. When we want to bring a player in then it really has to make sense."
So in what part of that statement has he said that transfers are on hold ?
What he has said is that the need to sign someone is now not so great and he is right there, the club will want to avoid another panic buy such as two years ago when they brought in Guido Carrillo for a club record transfer fee and within a couple of months his Saints career was effectively over with Mark Hughes not rating him at all.
That has had repercussions ever since as has the signings of Mario Lemina , Mohamed Elyounoussi and even Jannik Vestergaard, all players who were signed for big fees and all of whom failed to reproduce at Premier League level.
Ralph Hasenhuttl is playing mind games when he made those statements recently, he want to give the impression that we are not in a panic, that we are happy to go through the window without a signing if we can't get the right man, but he was very careful to point out that he knows the problem and nothing has changed in that respect and if the right man becomes available then he will go for him.
Other rumours look to try and blame a lack of signing so far on Chairman Gao and the finger pointing at him is that he is more interested in selling players than buying, that Gao wanted to sell Che Adams to Leeds United and it was only Ralph putting his foot down that stopped it happening.
This stems from rumours in national newspapers and is used by some to criticise the board, but actually if the story is true then it shows who is in charge of transfers and that is Ralph Hasenhuttl.
Another comment suggested that we were about to accept a £30 million bid for Ryan Bertrand, again this was touted as evidence of a lack of ambition, personally I would be concerned if we didn't accept £30 million for a player who will turn 31 later this year and has perhaps 2 years left as a top level player, something that to be frank he hasn't been too many times in the past year or so.
I find myself writing a story like this every January, the media put out stories that have no real basis in fact and are mainly rumours put out by agents in order to try and drum up business for their clients, sometimes 2 or 3 times down the chain in the actual transfer.
To give an example, Saints are being heavily linked with Joe Bryan of Fulham, we are said to be in competition with Atalanta and Watford to name but two clubs, who is telling the press this ? well it won't be Saints, Watford or Atalanta, it will be his agent who will also be trying to generate interest in Ryan Bertrand so that the chain could start to move, it will go back further along the line, perhaps the agents of potential left backs to replace Bryan at Fulham will also be trying to stir things up.
These is a chain in transfers if Bertrand was to leave Saints it could trigger moves going back 4 -5 clubs as players are sold and replaced, truth is only a very small percentage of transfer rumours actually happen, that is for a number of reasons but with only two windows a year the rumour mill is very condensed.
So we all need to sit back and not take every story in the press as being the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, the only truth is usually that any rumour is not started by a club, football clubs never go out and brief the press about their transfer plans, it only puts the price up, the only exceptions are as in the case of Virgil Van Dijk leaving here for Liverpool when the deal was done and dusted between the player and club and Saints wouldn't budge, so Liverpool used the media to apply pressure.
We all know that we need a new central defender, Ralph Hasenhuttl knows that but he is trying to deflect interest away from that by saying we need full backs and that we are not desperate to buy as we would have been had we not won a few games over the past month.
Let's not use a lack of incoming so far as something to start off more discontent in and around the club, if we find the right man at the right price and he want's to come here then the deal will happen, but all those three things have to be in place otherwise we run the risk of just adding to the list of expensive signings who although may be £20 million players in name and transfer fee, but are not in terms of their quality.