After the signing of Wesley Hoedt Mauricio Pellegrino has perhaps just one more piece to complete his jigsaw, but is that piece already in the box or does he need to buy it.
As the memory of some awful games last season starts to fade, a dose of reality is starting to kick in that the Saints had a decent squad last season but it was just poorly managed, that being the case Mauricio Pellegrino just needed a couple of key signings and a squad good enough to finish 8th last season could hope to do better.
With the arrival of Wesley Hoedt adding to that of Mario Lemina, Pellegrino has made two shrewd additions to the squad that no sees it in a stronger position than the end of last season, the big question though is whether it is as strong as it was at the start.
In the main the answer is probably yes, we did not have Manolo Gabbiadini and his goals will make a big difference, however the constant issue last season was in central defence where the petulant Jose Fonte disrupted our plans and then the injury to Virgil Van Dijk.
Fonte should have been replaced in January and I am convinced that had we done so then we might well have won the League Cup and perhaps even chased Everton down to 7th place, the failure to do so in my opinion was a big mistake by Les Reed and his team, a mistake compounded when Van Dijk was injured.
But forward to 23rd August and the squad is once again starting to look strong, we have good options in all positions and overall I think this could be our strongest squad ever with the emphasis on the word "Squad".
But there is still one piece yet to be slotted into place in Pellegrino's jigsaw and that is smack bang in the centre of our defence and the big question is whether Virgil Van Dijk will climb out of the toybox and fill it, or whether Saints should bring in another central defender.
Ideally Van Dijk will accept that he is not going to move this summer, realise that it is detrimental to his career to sit in the stands for the rest of the season or at least till January and step back into contention.
If he does so I would suggest that if Hoedt is as good as they say then we will have as good a defence as any in the division bar the top six and I would also suggest that it would be better than Liverpool's.
This is the ideal situation, it would give us a great platform to build on and more to the point and back to that word squad again, plenty of options for Pellegrino in all positions whether he needs to make changes tactically or through injury etc.
But will Saints get the ideal situation ?
If they don't the risk is that we repeat the mistakes of last season, ie persevering with a want away player.
So Saints have some thinking to do in the last week of the transfer window, especially if they get a late bid from anyone but Liverpool do they accept it ?
The problem for Van Dijk is that Liverpool cannot risk bidding, they have played such an underhand game, topped this week by a club employee in Steven Gerrard,urging that Van Dijk be signed, they know they are bang to rights, should they break their promise of earlier in the summer that their interest in Van Dijk was ended.
They are waiting for another club to bid and Saints to accept so they can move into action, they will then claim they are not chasing the player, merely joining in the bidding after Saints made him available, we all know the reality, but this is clearly their strategy and has been for the last few months, the problem for them is that no other club has yet bid, so Saints could not accept even if they wanted to.
The question for Saints is what to do if a club does so, with it so late it would leave it late to get a replacement.
The first option would be that Chelsea made an offer but were willing to throw in Andreas Christensen, that would solve all Saints problems in one swoop and would be acceptable to most Saints supporters in that it would let the club save face as well as having proved a point, the fact is keeping Van Dijk in this window is only delaying the inevitable, perhaps it would be better to deal with the problem now and move forward.
The second option would be that Saints accept an offer and sign Van Dijk's replacement independently make a direct bid for Christensen or perhaps another target like Kevin Wimmer of Spurs, but this would be leaving it very late in the window to do the deal but would work.
The problem on both of these options is that once a bid has been made Liverpool are going to put even more pressure on the player to exert his desire to go to Anfield, neither would go through smoothly unless Van Dijk has gone off moving to Liverpool.
Saints could decide to go out and sign Van Dijk's replacement whilst he still remains at the club, this would appeal to Saints fans, the likes of Wimmer or Christensen or indeed another identified target being in place and Van Dijk having to play for his place, it would be good for the squad, good for our season and also would leave us with a strong hand in the January window, again I think this would appeal to most Saints supporters as it would show the world we mean business.
The worst option for Saints is that nothing happens and Van Dijk continues to sit in the toy box throwing the toys out for the next four months, we all saw what happened when Jose Fonte did that a year ago.
Of course with Hoedt now in the position is stronger for Saints, the optimists in the Saints support will say that the defence is still stronger than at the end of last year and if we can finish 8th then, we can do better now, they would have a point, but the truth is we want to take some more steps forward and we need everything in place.
So the club has some tough decisions to make, there remains one big piece of the jigsaw yet to be slotted into place and they have to decide what to do about it, do they hope that Van Dijk accepts his situation for the moment and is professional about it or do they try and solve the problem now ?
One thing is for sure the next week or so will see some movement the only question is in what direction, but for Saints and their supporters the closure of this window cannot come soon enough, once it is shut we can get to the roots of the issue and know what we are dealing with, either a model professional or a spoilt brat !