It has been a strange season so far and despite the team being 7th going into Xmas and in a semi final, Saints supporters are not as happy as they should be and feel the team needs strengthening.
Claude Puel should be a hero in Southampton after taking over a squad once again depleted through outgoing transfers and forging it into a competitive outfit, indeed he sits 3 points and 5 places higher than his predecessor Ronald Koeman did at the same stage last year and after Everton's defeat to Liverpool last night Saints fans have the satisfaction of looking down on Koeman and his new team in the Premier League.
But Puel has a big mountain to climb before he can win the affection of the Saints fans en masse, many are very disillusioned with the club after the nature of the exit from the Europa League, many thought that Puel went a little far in his rotation policy and that the exit was entirely of our own making.
That is little unfair on the French manager, yes I like many are bitterly disappointed at going out of Europe, but we have to put it behind us and move on.
That is going to be very hard to do for a large chunk of the supporter base, football is sometimes about perception and despite the fact that this season is shaping up to have the potential to be another great one, perhaps the greatest given that we are in only our second semi final in 30 years, the perception amongst supporters is that we are boring to watch and are not a good side.
Whilst the league position dispels the latter perception and asks the question "if this is what we can achieve struggling to score goals and playing badly what can we do when we play well ?" It cannot be denied that we have struggled to put the ball in the net for a large chunk of the season, the 3 goal salvo at Bournemouth showed what we can do and moved us up the goalscoring charts, but some would say that is merely papering over the cracks.
So the supporters want to see new signings in the squad, they want to see that the club still has ambition.
The ambition of the club is being questioned because in the summer window the club spent far less than it brought in, the sale of Mane, Wanyama & Pelle brought in a total of around £57 million and you can add to that the £5 million compensation received from Everton for Koeman and his brother.
But in turn the purchase of Nathan Redmond, Pierre Emile Hojbjerg, Sofiane Boufal and to a lesser extent Alex McCarthy for around £47 million meant that Saints failed to spend around £15 million of the funds received.
Now Saints fans want to see it spent and most would agree for one reason or another that there are two areas that need strengthening.
The most popular area for improvement is up front most Saints fans feel that the only answer to our goalscoring woes is to bring in a striker, however I think the type of player that the fans want in will differ from what Puel himself will want, the fans want another Pelle/Lambert, Puel does not play with that type of striker and if he is looking for a striker it will be someone smaller and quicker, think Daniel Sturridge as an example.
However the key to whether we need to go for a striker is if Jay Rodriguez can keep up the form he showed at Bournemouth, if he keeps scoring and Redmond, Boufal, Tadic and Long start chipping in then perhaps the manager will feel that he has a decent strike force, certainly on paper he has, but so far it has underperformed.
The second position the fans want to see a signing in is in the centre of defence, there is something going on with Jose Fonte that has yet to emerge and there are Saints fans who will champion both sides of the story, but all agree that the club need to be looking to strengthen in this area, Fonte is 33 on Thursday and that is old for a central defender.
With not many people willing to put money on Virgil Van Dyke being here in the medium to long term it is an area that needs to be addressed sooner than later.
But the main thing a signing or two will do is help restore the faith of a large chunk of the Saints support, whilst I would suggest that the sale of players and replacing them over the past few years has been the main reason we have been competitive and is the only way we can compete with the big six who have unlimited funds compared to us, it is soul destroying and has affected the morale of the Saints support.
That morale needs to be refreshed, Saints fans need to be reminded that actually this season is better than the last so far and could get much better, but it needs to be shown that the club still has ambition.
So this January transfer window is crucial for Southampton Football Club for more reasons than just adding bodies to the squad, it is about hope, it is about perception and more importantly it is about keeping the club moving forward.
So do we need to be active in the January window and if so where ? Vote in the poll using the link below and give your opinions.
http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/southampton/forum/185195/do-we-need-to-str