This was a game that was going to show the fans some answers and it did !
There were several questions on the lips of the fans as they entered St Mary's last night, and probably the first one was How will the players respond ?
Well they responded with a performance that like Saturday's showed that they were firmly behind their manager or should I say ex manager, everything a team needs to win a game was not present, although in fairness Dean Wilkins was in a no win situation and possibly knew himself that this was a game that needed to be got out of the system, if we are to move forward on Saturday.
Off the field the fans were quite clear in their views, chants of "Theres only one Alan Pardew" "We want our Pardew back" and even "You can stick Paul Hart up your a***" rang from the Northam End at various points in the game, sending a clear messgae to the Chairman.
On the field the players also seemed quite clear in their views, whilst I would say thhat no player would ever go out and try and lose a game deliberately, there are many factors that come together and make the difference between a player playing badly or well, last night mentally the players were not right and it can only be because of the situation that has developed over the past few days.
Brazillian signing Guly made his debut on the left wing and it was quite obvious that this was not his position, the man is a central midfield player, he has height and he can win balls in the air, not the usual attributes for a winger, but he was shoehorned in, in a position he is not truly suited for, to be blunt, he either has to replace one of the central midfield pairing or he is the third man in a five man midfield, but he is not a wide man, older fans will remember when Alan McCloughlin was the record signing for Saints, ironically from Swindon, he was a specialist in a position, playing in the hole behind the strikers, but Saints didnt play that formation and so he was moved out wide and subsequently he didnt play well, yet when he moved to Pompey he had many years playing his favoured role.
At the back those who went to Bristol Rovers would also be able to confirm, Arron martin should now clearly be first choice Centre Half alongside Fonte, Jaidi is now too slow and cumbersome, whilst Martin although raw and still learning is mobile enough to recover situations.
This was a game that symbolised Alan Pardew's reign, last season the JPT seemed to have our name on it from the start, we almost knew that promotion would not happen, but that the JPT would, it symbolised Pardew and it symbolised Markus Liebherr, last nights defeat almost drew a line across the whole of last season, neither of them are now with us and things are changing, are they for the better, who can say, all I can say is that this was a team deeply affected by the manner of their managers departure, if we as a club are to recover from this, the Chairman now has to pull something out of the bag to show that he is leading from the front, he cannot afford to let the situation drag on, he has to show he had a plan in place to replace Pardew and that man has to be one that the players respect, otherwise I fear for our squad in the January transfer window.