Saints take on Watford and if you believe rumours in the media this could be the last game in charge for Mark Hughes should Saints fail to win.
The media is rife this morning with stories of how if Mark Hughes fails to win what is now a desperate game for Saints against Watford on Saturday, then he will be heading out of the door at St Mary's for good.
Hughes win ratio as a Saints manager is poor, in all competitions Hughes has now had 23 games in charge, he has won only 5 of them giving him a win ratio of only 21.8 %, this is as bad as it gets and is worse than Jan Poortvliet with 25%, Mark Wotte with 22.22% and even Mauricio Pellegrino with 23.53%.
It should also be noted that 1 of those wins was actually a draw, the Everton Carabao cup game being won by a penalty shootout.
It gets worse when you take into account Premier League games only, Hughes has been in charge of 19 of them so far for Saints, exactly half a season, he has won 3 times, his win ratio in those games is a paltry 15.7% with only 15 points gained, that is relegation form in anybody's book.
So the bookies and the media have Hughes as cast iron favourite to be the next man to be sacked in the Premier League and are speculating it could be as soon as this weekend should Saints once again fail to win a game.
From a Saints perspective they will hope that Hughes wins, as I have been saying in other stories, the situation should be taken in isolation, some scream for the board to be sacked, but in modern football with clubs being big companies, sacking the entire board for the mistakes of one or two men is not the answer nor is it practical, you cannot just replace executives overnight and to do so wholesale would destabilise the club and would worsen things without a doubt.
Ralph Krueger's name is always mentioned, but he is responsible for the whole club, not just the football side, in truth it is only really now he has to make a decision.
The man responsible for recommending the appointment of a manager is Les Reed, some would say that he has got Hughes two predecessors wrong, but in reality Claude Puel was not a disaster for the club, his record stands up against most other Saints managers, Puel had a 37.78 win ratio in 45 games ( Not including Europa League) ironically it was very similar to Mauricio Pochettino's 38.33%, better than Gordon Strachan's 35.45%, Alan Ball's 32.84% & even Chris Nicholl's 34.13.
On reflection in a sport that is all about results, Puel can hold his head up against most of his peers, especially in what were circumstances not of his own making with injuries to key players.
But Reed did get it wrong with Pellegrino although he himself had mitigating circumstances similar to Puel, he cannot afford to get it wrong for a second time in barely a year.
He went for the safe option with Hughes and deviated from the club's usual route of foreign coaches in the previous four appointments and once you start bowing to public opinion instead of sticking to your own guns it is worrying.
Last season Krueger backed Reed in giving Pellegrino longer than he should have done, this season if Reed dithers then the Chairman has to take action and step in.
Reed knows this hence he will be keen for Hughes to win on Saturday and perhaps save his skin as well as Hughes's own.
The press are speculating on replacements, the usual suspects are being touted, Sam Allardyce for his usual fire fighting job, David Moyes is also in the frame.
Leonardo Jardim, the former Monaco coach, had been high on the Southampton board’s wish list, however it looks like he will be heading to China and if that is the case then he will be chasing money and Saints will not be able to match the Chinese in that respect.
However the Super League in China draws to a close in the next week or so with only 2 matches remaining, so perhaps Jardim will not want to do nothing for the next 4 months and would prefer a European team as his next destination.
One name mentioned by the Saints fans is Nigel Pearson, Pearson is remembered fondly for his short spell at the club, but ironically his time at the club mirrors Mark Hughes, Pearson took charge for 14 games at the end of the 2007/08 season and kept Saints up, however like Hughes he actually had a poor record and relied on a win on the last day of the season.
He won only 3 of the 14 matches he was in charge for, his win ratio of 21.43 actually being worse than the so called cheap options that followed him Poortvliet & Wotte, like Hughes the euphoria of staying up blurred the vision, unlike Hughes he did not get the chance to blot his copybook the next season, he is currently managing OH Leuven a second division club in Belgium owned by Leicester City's owners King Power who installed him as manager in September 2017.
So Saturday is going to be a crunch day in this season, it may decide the destiny of the club for the rest of the season, but as much as I have little confidence in Mark Hughes at this present moment, I want Saints to stay up and from that perspective this is a vital three points and we need to back the team to get them.