Claude Puel has had a difficult first season at St Mary's, not all of it being of his own making, but the next three games will go a long way in pointing to whether he has a long term future as Saints manager.
I have always said that Claude Puel should be judged at the end of the season and not half way through it or after a run of poor games, after all if we had judged either Mauricio Pochettino or Ronald Koeman on a short poor period then both could easily have been sacked if we judged them on the same standards that some want to judge Puel.
Of course Claude Puel has made mistakes, at times his employment of the rotation system has been too extreme, but looking back was that as big a problem as some would have you believe, yes it cost us our Europa League progression when he played a much changed team in Prague, something that gambled when we should have gone for certainty, but this season has had much more issues and not all Puel's fault.
The issue with Jose Fonte was not of Puel's making, Fonte was looking to leave before he had even met Puel and truth is we did not land the striker that Puel needed for his system back in August, if we had then Puel's reputation with some Saints fans could be much higher.
He also has had a lot of bad luck with injuries, at times we have had half a dozen players out, some of the key, not all of the changes made by Puel were uneccessary.
But since Xmas his stock has changed, we have got more consistency and we achieved our first major final in 14 years and from a statistical point of view sitting 10th in the League having played in that final is as good a season as any of his predecessors in the entire history of the club have managed, indeed ironically perhaps the two most successful managers at Saints judging on finals and League positions are Lawrie McMenemy and Gordon Strachan, both had far worse starts to their career at the club than Puel and got more stick from the fans because of it.
So if we are to judge the Frenchman at the end of the season then the next three games will go a long way to helping form that judgement.
In my opinion if he achieves a top ten finish then after adding the Wembley final that will be a decent first season and indeed a decent season for any manager of this football club, especially when you consider it would be the first time we have managed a top ten finish four times in a row and how few finals we have played in.
Neutral observers would certainly see it as successful and given our history it would be strange if our own supporters did not see it as not only consolidating the last three years but building on them, four years ago we were seen as relegation candidates, now we are seen as a top ten challenger and contender for honours.
But first Puel hasto finish the job this season and the next three fixtures will go a long way as to just how well we end up.
We have two very winnable home games, win them both and that will see us nudging the 40 point mark on 39, but more importantly will put ground between us and the chasing clubs including Saturday's visitors Bournemouth and we will have games in hand.
But it will set us up for arguably the most important fixture in the remainder of the season and that is the trip to West Brom, the Baggies currently sit in 8th and barring a meltdown by Everton, 8th is our target, we are 10 points behind West Brom but with two games in hand, we need to make up that ground and even if we win the two home games we still need to go to the Hawthorns and win to stand a real chance of overhauling them.
So these three games will tell us by the end if we are going to chase down West Brom or if we are going to have to battle it out for 10th place and indeed whether we are favourites or not to take one of those spots.
Lose two out of three and we will be falling behind in our quest.
So It is a big week coming up for Puel, he has to get the team selection right for these games and he has to win them, it has been a difficult first season for him, that cannot be denied and as i say not all of his own making, however having given him some leeway, he now has to show that he can take the team forward.