Saints have not been perfect in their opening six Premier League games, but they have improved with each game and when the fixture list was announced most would have taken 7 points from the opening 6 fixtures, but now comes the crunch period.
The opening day at Tottenham Hotspur was a disaster, a disorganised performance, riddled with individual error and with 70 minutes of the next game at home to Leeds United gone, at 2-0 down things didn't look much better, but the season changed with a substitution or two, off went Elyounoussi for Joe Aribo, off went Jan Bednarek in possibly what could have been his last Premier League action for the club and suddenly the game changed and so did the season.
But Saints were and even after the 4 new signings on deadline day are a work in progress.
I said at the start of the season that the problem wasn't scoring goals, but stopping them going in and I still stand by that, with 7 goals scored in the opening 6 fixtures we are around mid table in the Premier League scoring charts, the top 10 clubs have scored more than us, but the other 9 have not, it is still not great, but we are scoring goals and making chances and but for that awful miss by Che Adams on Saturday at Wolves, things would look a lot better, yes we still need to score more, but it is about just being more clinical than a major problem.
But in defence after 6 goals shipped in the first two games the real issue was clear, we could not keep putting pressure on the attacking player to score by giving other teams two goal leads through shoddy play and in the main in the next four games Ralph Hasenhuttl has changed and evolved his tactics and done that, there are some who will be uncharitable and say it is someone else making the decisions, but that is being biased, Ralph has a coaching team, has does any manager, he needed some experienced input and he now has it.
So having sorted out the back line and indeed brought in some more bodies to bolster it further in Duje Caleta-Car and Juan Larios, we need to sort out the scoring issue.
As I said I think our tactics have evolved, but we still have some players capable of scoring goals, in recent games we have played a formation similar to that employed by Ronald Koeman, a lone central striker flanked by two attacking players who also protect the flanks, but none of these players were particularly free scoring, the most Pelle, Mane or Long got in a season individually was 12. We didn't have one individual striker, what we had was three that could get us 25-30 goals a season and that is what I think we are working towards here.
At Wolves Adam Armstrong again worked hard and created chances and I think he will get goals, it is the other side that we need to look at Moi Elyounoussi is not the right man for the position in truth, but Sekou Mara and new signing Sam Edozie might well be, so I am not too worried about the goalscoring at present, I think it will come.
So having come through 6 games where many Saints fans thought we would be lucky to get 3 points and some even suggested we would not get even 1, we sit on 7 with something to build on, it should be noted at this point that at the same point last year we had yet to win a game and only had 4 points, but having got through the hard bit this year, now comes 3 games where we are playing sides who sit in the table around us.
Brentford have made a good start, but they are still only two points above us and we would overtake them with a win on Saturday, Villa sit 4th from bottom with 4 points at present and Everton only a place above on goal difference.
These are the three games that will point to where we can go forward this season, at best a three game winning streak would truly put us into the top 10 and looking up the table, 4 points would keep us where we are and to lose at least two of the three games would leave us struggling a bit.
As I said I am not too concerned at the moment with looking over our shoulders, I think that with our new additions we are far stronger than we were a year ago, we just need to cut out the lapses in concentration at the back and be more clinical in front of goal, the new coaching set up seem to have been working on that, we have seen results just not perfect yet.
So what we need to do now is really click as a unit, Brentford have done that and are taking the plaudits, but they start Saturday only two points above us, our first task is to make sure that gap doesn't widen come Saturday evening and hopefully puts us above them.
The table after 6 games made some strange reading, yes the so called Big Six were again rising to the upper echelons with only Brighton in the middle upsetting the established order, but sides that were expected to be struggling haven't so far, a look at the bottom 5 shows only Forest in the bottom 3 surrounded by sides that you would not expect to be there and i suspect at least a couple of them won't be by the end of the season, Aston Villa, Everton, Leicester & West Ham will surely be too good to struggle all season.
We play Villa & Everton after Brentford & we have to make sure that we despatch them now before they have a head of steam up, if we do we have taken a big jump forward and it will set us up nicely for the run in to the break for the World Cup.
So there are three crucial games in the offing and Saints need the backing they got against Chelsea for the visit of Brentford, with prices lowered for this game and adult seats available for as low as £25 in many parts of the ground, this is one that should hopefully see a near sell out or at least should do given our start to the season.