This should have been a game that brought a little life relief to Southampton supporters, instead it was possibly the worst performance that we have produced this season, it had little hope for the future either this season or next.
Both sides made changes for this game, but it was only Burnley who rang them, they made 9 whilst Saints made only 4 from the starting line up against Ipswich, one was the goalkeeper and the other enforced with the injury to Taylor Harwood-Bellis, so just two otherwise.
That surely had to mean that we would continue where we left off at Portman Road, but the reality was far different, it was firstly difficult to work out what formation we were playing, was it 3-4-1-2 ? who knows, but we had 5 defenders on the pitch. only one of whom was a specialist central defender.
Whatever it was it lacked leadership, no one seemed to know what they were doing and it meant we created very few chances and when we did we didn't finish them.
Burnley might have made a lot of changes but they all knew just what their task was and the formation they were playing, they were disciplined, we were 10 outfield individuals all over the place.
It was perhaps more about the players that weren't there, than the players who where. Adam Armstrong might not be Premier League class when it comes to goalscoring, but he was the best striker that we had, likewise Flynn Downes, it appears that both of them wanted away in this window, it seems both have fallen out with the manager.
We could have done with both on the pitch for this game, they might not be quite Premier League class, but last season they were two of the bedrocks of our promotion winning side, how will we replace them next season ?
Ivan Juric is putting his stamp on our squad, but worryingly he seems to be dismantling rather than evolving the squad, that doesn't help us much either this season or next.
Back to this game though, it was an utter shambles, we were too predictable, Tyler Dibling looked like he would much prefer to have played in a deeper role where he could get the ball and run at opponents and Sulemana has plenty of pace, but so has a greyhound, there was nothing done differently or out of the ordinary to try and change the game.
There was no cohesion or leadership on or off the pitch, we started the game with 5 defenders we had another 3 on the bench who didn't get on, at the back we had Jan Bednarek with seemingly a back three with James Bree on one side & Welington on the other, sometimes you thought that Joe Aribo was dropping into the centre of defence, but you were never quite sure.
When Tall Paul came on nothing changed, in fact it got worse, he had no service and to be blunt you have to use him by trying to hit him in the box, with Tyler Dibling on, we had the hope that he would produce a little run and some magic, that went when he was subbed off.
I couldn't work out what we were doing, when Burnley scored with 13 minutes left, you thought we might go for it, but we didn't, on 82 minutes the answer from the bench was to bring on Will Smallbone for Big les Ugochukwu, what was that about, I like Smallbone, he is a tidy player and sometimes gets unfair criticism in some quarters, but here we are losing 1-0 with 5 defenders on the pitch, why was one of them not brought off ?
We made a double change in 86th minute, an attacking one with Albert Gronbaek & Cameron Archer, but too little & far too late.
So few people came out of this game with any credit, on the playing side only Welington could walk off with the satisfaction that he had had a decent game, off the pitch the finger has to be pointed at Ivan Juric who seems to have decided to impose his way on the squad, by taking out some senior players such as Armstrong & Downes and bring in players such as Tall Paul & Sulemana who over the past two years have shown very little loyalty of commitment to the club up to recently.
I understand that some will feel neither Armstrong or Downes were Premier League quality, but they were no worse than anyone else in the squad, if you judge them by those around them.
We will find it hard to replace them next season in the Championship.
As I said this game should have given us a little joy and a little hope, but after last weekend's win over Ipswich, it now feels like we have gone backwards not forwards.