The arrival of Joe Shields from Manchester City as head of recruitment in the summer obviously had a big impact on the influx of players to St Mary's, now Saints manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has stressed the need to trust the recruitment programme in place going forward.
A few years ago Southampton FC were ground breaking in their so called Black Box system used to identify potential signings and assess their potential to play for the club, this was cited as part of the reason that the club were selected by owners Sport Republic to be the flagship club in what they hope to be a portfolio of clubs around the globe.
But they saw the system in place as a very good foundation and hoped to build on that and fine tune it.
Part of that fine tuning was the acquisition of Joe Shields then head of academy recruitment at Manchester City and now head of our recruitment overall.
With the arrival of Shield it was inevitable that he should use his knowledge of the gems that he had witnessed at first hand at the Etihad and that surfaced with firstly the signings of Gavin Bazunu & Romeo Lavia and then on the final day of the transfer window, two more signings in Samuel Edozie & Juan Larios.
This can only bode well for the club as under Shields, City had emerged as the most prolific producer of young talent in the Premier League, their problem was that given City's need to have a first team squad packed with experience and proven quality, the chances for youngsters coming through were few and far between.
In the past the team manager was seen as the man who identified the players he wanted and had the first and also the final decision on who was signed and who wasn't.
The problem was that meant new signings were pretty much limited to who the current manager wanted and that could be influenced as we have seen in the past at St Mary's on more than one occasion to what agents he was close to and also in one case family members.
But the problem with this was the signings were specific to each individual manager, when he left, a new man came in with his own ideas and wanted his own signings and the process was repeated with each new manager.
Saints sought to change that when they revamped their scouting system over the last decade and as they fine tuned it made the manager a big part of the process in terms of having the final say, but only part of that process and not the be all and end all of it.
This has taken time to evolve, some older managers have been very scornful of the system, but the more modern progressive managers have seen it as progress and have welcomed it with open arms and now Ralph Hasenhuttl has praised the Southampton way of doing things and the improvements made.
When speaking about the arrival of Joe Shields to St Mary's he had this to say:
"You know, as a manager, when you pick the players you have never the same knowledge about the player like people like this, who have watched them 20, 30, 40 times or even more.
"When you see them one time and you make some mistakes and think ‘I don't need him’, it’s not, that's not the way it goes.
"That's why you have a department, that's why you have people looking for the players over the years.
"And then you have to trust them and then you have to say, ‘okay, bring them in’, and then it's up to us to make them shine.”
Hasenhuttl also pointed out that the changes were not just inside the club itself, but that there was a new ability to act quicker due to the financial input from new owners Sport Republic.
"You need also to have the money to get them here, this is also important. I mean, we always had our eyes on the right players in the past but the difference was that we couldn't bring them, in time, when we knew that they were available.
"And most of the time we had to wait until we sold players before we can go to them, and then it was very often too late and they were playing for other clubs.
"Especially for the young players, I think we are good here. They know this and this makes it easier for us.
"But it doesn't mean that every young player in the world can play for us.
"We want to pick the best ones, and then invest all the energy and all the work, what we want to do, to make them better.
"And this is I think a good combination and I think Romeo Lavia and Gavin immediately shows that this is a good way to go.”
The summer transfer window just ended has been proof of how the club has changed and also improved, at the start of the summer there were many sceptics, but those people have been proved wrong, yes it is early days yet, but the tales of doom and gloom predicted in the transfer window did not emerge and we saw perhaps our busiest window.
But it was not only the in door that was busy, the door out of St Mary's was revolving much more, 7 players went out on permanent moves and 14 on loan deals.
That saw perhaps the end of an era where our ability to sign players was hampered by big wages on the books, perhaps £15 million per annum on a permanent basis came off the wage bill.
The 14 players out on loan was in some respects a culling of those who will not play a future in the club, but that is testament to our academy system that we can produce so many who will make a living out of the game at League level, although it should be noted that there were some youngsters sent out to give them experience they won't get at B team level.
Now these signings need to show they have what it takes, some already have and if the others follow in their footsteps in the next few months, we will have truly moved forward as a club.
Not everything is rosy at St Mary's, but it is far better than it was at this time last years both on and off the pitch and that is progress.