It was an unchanged side for the visit of Nottingham Forest and it was an unchanged performance, as we struggled to create clear chances and gave away a goal through poor defending.
Russell Martin stuck with the starting line up he employed at Newcastle 7 days earlier and he got the same result, although it has to be said that the manner of the performance was not the same.
At Newcastle, Saints looked strong in the first 30 minutes, in this game from the start the visitors looked up for it and in the first half seemed to be able to create chances at will.
The second half was not much better and it we were punished in the 70th minute when Forest got what turned out to be the only goal of the game and the winner.
At this stage Saints had yet to make a substitution and there will be some say we were getting stronger as the game went on, but the fact is we were still struggling to create opportunities.
We paid the price when the ball was cleared to the edge of the area following a corner, fact is that Joe Aribo should have put his foot through the ball and cleared it, he was under pressure from two Forest players, he opted to try and run with the ball and lost possession and seconds later it was in the back of our net.
Not a major error, but certainly one of judgement, there are some occasions where keeping the ball has to go out the window and it has to be cleared, this was one of them !
Given that we had left some good attacking options on the bench, in new signings Cameron Archer, Mateus Fernandes as well as Tyler Dibling, Sam Edozie & Sam Amo-Ameyaw, it was strange that with 70 minutes gone and virtually zero chances created, that a change hadn't been made.
Straight after the goal we made two substitutions and 3 minutes later made two more, did that help our cause ? I would say it made things worse, we took off our leading scorer Adam Armstrong and brought on Sam Edozie, no offence to Edozie but I know who I would rather have on the pitch when I am chasing a goal.
Some will say that stats don't matter, but a look at the data from this game and it is damning, we had 65% possession, but we had only 1 shot on target, they had 8.
In terms of attempts on goal, we had 5, they had 23, that tells the story of the game, in the main we were quite comfortable defending, the goal conceded aside, but going forward we were pedestrian and dire, we had no central focus, both Ben Brereton-Diaz & Adam Armstrong seemed to stay out wide and unlike the visitors we had no one in the box to aim at.
So a disappointing day at the office, it had many worrying issues, but it also did have some hope going forward, we have discipline and we have the foundations of a good squad, we just need to add a couple of players and utilise others already in the squad.
For me the big disappointment though, was the way that the fans left early, yes it was a disappointing game but with 6 minutes of injury time added and given the number of goals scored late on last season, it must have been disheartening for the players on the pitch to see the fans leaving in droves, just when they needed them.