There is no doubt that Mauricio Pellegrino inherited some "issues" when he arrived at St Mary's, but there has also been much of his own making, can he now get it right !
In hindsight the issues with Virgil Van Dijk were a big influence on the first half of the season, Saints wanted to avoid a third summer of their supporters going into meltdown and accusing the club of selling at the first opportunity decided to make a stand to show that they wanted to keep the squad together.
In hindsight that was folly although hopefully the one lesson to be learned by the supporters is that when you have a player whose head has been turned by the lure of a Big Six club and money, it is hard to keep him contract or no contract, the likes of Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama showed that some players when forced to stay will knuckle down and earn their wages, Jose Fonte and Virgil Van Dijk showed that others prefer to take another route.
The first half of the season seemingly saw the club and manager try to persuade Van Dijk to stay by playing him whatever whilst Wesley Hoedt and Yoshida were rotated, despite the fact that they were the ones loyal to the club and actually wanted to play.
By December the club had had enough of Van Dijk and just wanted him out, clearly his attitude was disruptive and affecting the squad's morale.
Since Van Dijk's departure was announced Saints have played 8 games, starting with a fine draw at Old Trafford they have lost only once and slowly and almost without people noticing have put together a run of form, that although only including one win has shown that the squad is united.
But our issues this season have not just been caused by Van Dijk, the truth is that the manager has not done the job to the standard expected from a man of his experience, his team selections have been puzzling, but his substitutions have been far worse with the feeling that if he had made the right ones at the right times then perhaps we would have a few points more on the board and relegation would not be a reality but a distant worry.
But it looks like Pellegrino has weathered the storm, at least for the moment, 1 defeat in 8 is not a bad record and although not brilliant 7 points out of 6 games in the Premier League is moving forward and that ratio is improving, 6 out of the last 4 if maintained would see us easily avoid relegation.
So the manager has bought a stay of execution, but he now has to show that he has learn't his lessons, that he can not only make the right selections, but also those substitutions at the right moments, at West Brom he gave us all hope that he could do both of those things and it cannot be denied that the squad played with passion and for the first time in a while as a team.
I cannot deny that I am still unsure about Pellegrino, I would have happily seen him sacked at any time over the past two months, I thought it was beyond repair, but the last six games have shown that perhaps it is not and it has been done under the radar.
Hopefully we can continue this improvement, certainly we will lose a game or two and these will be setbacks, but the manager has to make sure that they remain that, just setbacks and not catalysts for a meltdown.
But now he has a little more weapons in his armoury, he has Guido Carrillo, he will shortly have back Charlie Austin and if he uses both Lemina and Hoedt well two players who have not played as much as they should have done earlier in the season.
Yes we could have done with a player or two more in the transfer window, but the reality is that Pellegrino has a better squad available to him that Claude Puel had at this time last year when he had lost both his central defenders in the space of a couple of weeks.
That squad of last year has seen three additions in Lemina, Hoedt and Carrillo and the also the emergence of Pierre Emile Hojbjerg, the point is that if Pellegrino can get this squad playing then he can perhaps make this season reasonable after all with a decent league placing and perhaps a good run in the cup.
Last season Pule finished the season by earning 13 points in the last 12 games, not a brilliant record, but one that if we emulate this year will see us stay up,but truth is we need to better it and by doing so could hope to finish higher than the 15th place we currently occupy.
So the ball is in Pellegrino's court, can he finally show why he was appointed in the first place , why the board have shown such faith in him and that by doing so that the squad is not the relegation fodder that some Saints fans would have you believe.
As I said I still need to be convinced that he is the man for the job, but it looks like he is here to stay, at least for the rest of the season, that being the case all Saints fans need to consider what they want from this season, if it is the team to stay up and even get to Wembley, then they need to get behind it and stay behind it, in truth at the matches the match going supporters have, its those who take to social media who have created a toxic atmosphere on line.
The alternative is to get on the managers back and make it harder for the team to drag itself clear from the relegation zone, do we really want that ?
Personally I wan't him to succeed, I have nothing against him personally, I want him to show us he is the man to take Southampton Football Club forward, not just this season but next and the years after that.
So now Mauricio Pellegrino has no excuses, the ball is firmly in his court to show us he has what it takes and that we should all get behind him.