Saints Premier League fate will be decided by how well or badly they fare in the January transfer window.
Make no bones about it the current Saints squad will do well to survive in the Premier league, we can just about put out a decent starting XI but after that the squad is a bit thin on the ground and as Nigel Adkins has shown recently by injuries and goalkeepers aside playing the same players week in week out, there is little option beyond the first 12-14 players.
But the squad doesnt need to be full of quantity it needs quality and thats why the next month is crucial, back in the summer Saints were not succesful in the window in the main, the players that we really should have got in the positions that we were short in did not materialise for whatever reasons meaning that we ended up with panic buys like Yoshida or arrivals like Mayuka who has shown nothing to suggest he is any better than the likes of Tadanari Lee or Billy Sharp.
Now we have to be serious and focused, we dont need more forwards and we dont need more cover for other positions, we need four quality signings in the right positions, we can get away with three at a push but four will really do it if they are the right ones.
1. Goalkeeper. We need a truly proven Premier goalkeeper with experience, between the three we have at the moment we perhaps have what we need, but unfortunately all of them are lacking in something, Davis is to be honest just not good enough and at his age wont get better, Boruc is unfit and overweight and seems to have issues and Gazzaniga is raw and inexperienced. I would like to see someone like Paul Robinson of Blackburn come in he ticks all the boxes in the price range we would look at.
2. Central Defenders. Preferably two and again they need to be Premier experienced and big and strong, to be blunt none of us are, they look boys against men too many times and there are too many errors still, Robert Huth would have fitted the bill perfectly, Brena Hangeland at Fulham is in the final months of his contract and could leave Craven Cottage for £2 million according to reports, he is big strong and knows what is needed, bring him in at that price alongside perhaps a genuine younger talent and it could be just what we need.
3. Winger. We have no wingers who can do the job that is needed in this division and that is getting up and down the flanks both supporting the strikers and getting crosses in as well as supporting the full backs, yes Jason Puncheon has done an OK job recently, but his form is patchy and he cant seem to turn it on away from home apart from QPR, in truth at this level he is a decent fringe player, he is not of the quality who should be starting 30 plus games in the premier, the other options including Lallana and Ramirez are not genuine wingers, they dont protect their full back as was emphasised for the goal conceded at Fulham where Luke Shaw, found himself with no cover and two men running at him, he was caught in no mans land and the resulting cross saw a goalkeeping error (Hence new keeper needed) and another error strewn goal conceded. Again experience would be preferable, but upcoming talent like Matt Phillips at Blackpool would also be acceptable.
If we strengthen in these three key areas we have a good chance of staying up, the key to survival is the ability to win games where we really shouldnt do, Wigan have had this ability over the past years to keep them safe and we need to develope it, at the moment we are let down in every game in these key areas and usually when it comes to goals conceded in more than one area at a time as happened at Fulham, we have to be able to stop conceding soft goals and become hard to beat, Stoke for example arent a great tteam, they dont score many only 18 in 19 games, but they dont concede many either, a miserly 14 and thats the mentality we have to get into, I dont mean play like Stoke except in the respect that they do the basics at the back and they do it well.
If we sign players in other areas it will only clog up the squad further, Nigel Adkins now needs to show us he has learned his lessons from the first half of the season, although we are just out of the bottom four at present, teams at the bottom usually get more points in the second half of the season than the first, our problem is that most of our points have come against teams in the bottom third of the table, if we take the bottom eight we have already played 8 of the 14 games we will play against the other 7, but worryingly of the 6 games remaining to be played 5 of them are away from home with only QPR at St Mary's.
What that is telling us is that the second half of the season is going to be a lot tougher than the first and that we are going to have to get more points than we did in the first half and in harder games, even if we duplicate the first half of the season, when was the last time anyone stayed up on 32 points ?
So our fate is in the hands of those that are responsible for the transfer policy, too many went wrong in the summer, nows the time to put that right as the old saying goes
"It's not what you have done wrong that counts, its what you do next"
If we adhere to that and put it right this time round then we will perhaps give the manager the players in the right positions to keep us up.