All football managers have to gamble at times, this was the case for Ralph Hasenhuttl against Manchester City on Saturday, but sadly it didn't pay off, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't have tried.
I am very loathe to criticise Ralph Hasenhuttl for two reasons, firstly of course there is the fact that in two years he has transformed us from a relegation threatened team into one once again competing for a top 10 place and secondly because all managers make mistakes from time to time.
His first gamble on Saturday was to play Danny Ings, I mentioned after the Sheffield United game that I thought that the striker should have been given a rest near the end of the game and that perhaps came home to roost when at Arsenal we had to leave Ings on the pitch as we tried to break down the Arsenal back eight.
So starting him against Manchester City by Ralph's own admission was a gamble, after 5 weeks out, it is asking a lot of any player, let alone one whose game relies heavily on work rate, to play 4 games in 14 days.
It was a gamble that failed and it is likely now that the player will be out until the New Year and will miss vital games against Fulham & West Ham, games which are more winnable than the game against City
Ralph in hindsight should have started Ings on the bench for the game on Saturday, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Having failed in his first gamble, the Austrian gambled again in his choice of replacement for Ings, on reflection it would have been easy to revert to our line up of the Ings injury period, push Walcott up as a striker and then bring on either Redmond or Armstrong as his replacement.
But we gambled again, Nathan Tella may have scored 4 goals in a B team game a few days earlier, but that is different from playing one of the best teams in the Premier League, Tella had a grand total of 40 minutes experience in the Premier League for Saints spread across 4 sub appearances 3 this season, it was throwing him in at the deep end to see if he could swim, I could understand if it was against Sheffield United at 1-0 up, but this was Man City at 1-0 down.
The second substitution was understandable, Redmond for Djenepo was a straight swap, some are quick to jump on Redmond's back, some did in St Mary's when he let a simple pass run under his boot on a couple of occasions earlier on, but truth is he holds his position better than Djenepo not only when attacking but when we have to defend, for me Djenepo is an impact player, last 20-25 minutes when you have to try and save the game, but in the first half against City we struggled to defend as he drifted inside two often leaving his full back double teamed by City.
The third change on 82 minutes was even more of a gamble than the first in that Ralph was either doing something really out of the box or at that point he wanted to ensure damage limitation either in the scoreline or injury list.
On came N'Lundulu meaning that we had another with limited Premier League experience to their name, in this case 8 minutes over 3 sub appearances.
This is no reflection on either Tella or N'Lundulu's abilities, they are still young, I am not going to write either off at this stage, they are learning their trade and both clearly have ability, some players make immediate impacts when they start making the first team, others take a little bit more time and improve as they get experience.
It was also a surprise that given Oriol Romeu had been booked and will miss the next game, that we didn't give his likely replacement Ibrahima Diallo a little run.
In my opinion playing Tella & N'Lundulu together meant that although both players did plenty of running and worked hard, they lacked the experience to make the right runs both to get the ball and also to create space for others, they chased the ball too much.
That meant in the last 10 minutes although we had plenty of the ball and our build up play was good, when we hit the final third we no longer looked like scoring, City handled it with ease and indeed too often in that last 10 minutes they won the ball too easily at the back and caught us on the counter attack, the 1-0 scoreline tells a story of a Saints team that for long periods matched Manchester City, but it does not tell the story of some woeful finishing where they could easily have punished us and won 3 or 4 nil.
But as I said football managers have to take gambles, sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don't, throwing on Tella & N'Lundulu was a gamble that didn't pay off but it will have told Ralph something going forward.
Against Fulham Ralph will have to gamble again, he has to replace Oriol Romeu who has arguably been our best player this season alongside James Ward Prowse and a pre injury Danny Ings.
Whatever he decides to do will be a gamble, if he does the obvious then as mentioned above he will play Ibrahima Diallo and a player who has barely played himself, he at least does some experience for Stade Brest in France, but since joining Saints he has made just 6 sub appearances for a total of 24 minutes, literally all of them have been in the final couple of minutes to run down the clock, this is not good preparation to be thrown into the deep end at Fulham, where he will be judged against two ex Saints in Harrison Reed and Mario Lemina.
This won't be the last gamble that Ralph Hasenhuttl will take, he like every other football manager has to gamble every week on something or other and it won't be the last time he gets it wrong, again he won't be alone there either.