Saints have two cup ties in the space of four days starting with the trip to Selhurst Park in the FA Cup on Saturday followed by Manchester City in the Carabao Cup at St Mary's on Wednesday, will they still be in both competitions, this time next week.
Southampton return to Selhurst Park only two months after going down to a 1-0 defeat to Palace in the Premier League, a game which if it had been won and it should have been, might well have meant the Saints board keeping faith with Ralph Hasenhuttl.
But the game was lost with the usual story of slack defending and missed chances and Hasenhuttl was replaced by Nathan Jones just over a week later.
Since then things have got worse and not better and Jones has presided over four straight Premier League defeats punctuated only by a narrow win over League One side Lincoln City in the Carabao Cup that set up a quarter final tie with Manchester City.
But before we play that we have to take on the Eagles and gain some confidence that will set us up not only for the City game but a truly do or die game up at Goodison Park where the atmosphere will be toxic, as Everton fans are even more up in arms than Saints fans at the moment.
Nathan Jones is still adamant that his preferred back three supported by wing backs is the way forward, but for this game he will be without Armando Bella Kotchap who after coming off injured against Nottingham Forest is having a scan on the injury so will miss this game and perhaps more.
That leaves Jones with only three fit central defenders in Lyanco, Caleta -Car & Salisu and so far whatever combination we have played has not looked solid.
One thing we learned from the Forest game is that Lyanco is a strong up and at em defender, but in a back three you need a ball playing figure in the centre, as his wayward pass on Wdnesday showed Lyanco isn't that man, the nearest we have to that is Calta-Car.
It seems likely Jones might enter the loan market to sort the issue out, but in the meantime he has to adapt , that could mean a place in the squad for 19 year old Nico Laurence, the youngster has been training with the first team of late and could be at least on the bench at Selhurst Park, we will see if he is in the squad for the B team game against Derby this evening which will perhaps give us an answer.
The problem for Jones though in playing his preferred system is not so much the central defenders but the fact that he has no recognised wing backs ! Kyle Walker Peters is able to adapt and has the engine to do it, but Romain Perraud is a traditional style full back and doesn't have the up and down the line engine that is needed to play as a wing back.
Most of the other options are more attacking wingers than wingers, in the past Djenepo has been used as a left wing back with varied success, I would not be surprised to see him start in this position on Saturday.
Otherwise it is hard to guess just who Jones will select, to be blunt his team selections have been slightly baffling, certain players seem to be in despite poor performance whilst the likes of Stuart Armstrong can't get in the starting line up.
In truth this isn't Jones fault, he probably only has two or three players who are truly undroppable, aside from those few, none of the rest have made themselves essential in the starting line up.
The FA cup is a welcome distraction from the fans who want to see a good FA Cup run, Jones though may be more pragmatic, he will not want to risk picking up injuries in the squad, he will balance up a good cup run with the fact that the stark truth in the Premier League era today is that we are highly unlikely to even reach the final let alone win it, with there now being 7 BIG clubs with seemingly unlimited spending power, gone are the days when the FA cup was a competition that anyone outside of this cartel can win it.
Indeed Saints a couple of years ago came as near as most in going down 1-0 to Leicester City in a semi final that saw the Foxes go on to beat Chelsea by the same score in the final.
So i expect a side packed with those that haven't got much of a look in so far under Jones, he probably has to play his Gavin Bazunu and his three fit central defenders out of necessity, but otherwise the 7 available positions after that will be James Ward Prowse and six others.
It would be good to win this game and have a little run in the FA Cup, but I suspect that Nathan Jones will not be as bothered about it as I am.