A late verdict this week as I wanted to let the meltdown on social media die down a little and take a look at the game based on a bit of rational thinking rather than knee jerk reaction.
Saints lost only their third game of the season after Bournemouth won 3-1 and although it cannot be denied that we got our tactics and selections completely wrong in the first half, it was a game we still dominated.
Ralph Hasenhuttl has been a breath of fresh air to Saints, he has instilled a sense of pride and optimism missing for a long time, but good managers make wrong decisions sometimes, that doesn't make them a bad manager, just one that like every other ones in football makes mistakes.
The old adage in football is to put square pegs in round holes, playing your right back at left back and your big powerful central defender at right back was not a wise decision and Eddie Howe spotted this and Bournemouth did what they do best, ripped us apart on the counter and caught us napping at a set piece.
Our defence is not the strongest at the best of times, all the switching and changing does not help it, keeping a settled side at the back is crucial.
Going forward we stuck with Che Adams and left Danny Ings on the bench, I rate Adams but perhaps this was a game he should have been taken out of the firing line and come off the bench, but the game cried out for the clever football of Ings or even the physical force of Long, we did a lot of attacking at pace, but too often it came to nothing.
Indeed the fact that Ings did not make an appearance till the 77th minute was strange, likewise bringing on Stuart Armstrong in the final minute.
In the second half we changed it and spent most of the time camped in the Bournemouth half, but the fact is for all our possession, we created very little, Sofiane Boufal had some great runs, but too often failed to deliver a killer ball, we did not have enough guile to break down the Cherries.
It was a bad day at the office, but the defeat actually offers more than many seem to realise, the way we dominated a team like Bournemouth shows that we are not a bad side, we are just short in a vital area and that is a leader on the pitch in the centre of defence to direct operations.
If we had that we would be in the top six today not 13th, but we now have some good foundations to build on, hopefully the return of Ryan Bertrand to action shows that he and the manager have put their differences to one side for the good of the team.
So this was a very disappointing result, in some ways predictable due to our lack of leadership at the back, something we have been lacking for near on three years now, so it is not just carelessness in the transfer market that is costing us games, by now it should have been sorted.
Saints will win games and they will lose them, at Sheffield United we got away with it when we presented them with soft chances due to poor marking, on Friday evening we didn't.
The rest of the season till January will be frustrating at times, we will win games when we get away with poor defending and we will lose some when we don't, the last two games have highlighted that.
We have to get to the New Year clear of relegation and then make that key signing in January. if we do that the second half of the season could be very exciting, if we don't then it is going to be a long frustrating winter.
But there is no need for panic yet, the trick is to keep calm, stay behind the team and make sure that a problem that can be solved does not escalate into a disaster.