One of the most important qualities you can have as you navigate your way through life in general or through life as a football fan is that of perspective. Perspective is something that gets completely lost these days, with social media being the way it is and patience at an all-time low. It can always be worse for other people or in this case, other clubs or fanbases.

The last 18 months as a Southampton fan have basically been shit and from within the Southampton FC supporting bubble, you could be forgiven for thinking that we were the club with the most problems on the face of the Earth. The fact is that we are the club with the most problems on the face of our particular earth. A quick look at the recent history of today’s opponents will reveal to you where things are actually worse.

In just the last few months, Sheffield Wednesday and their fans have had to put up with transfer embargoes, players not getting paid on time, players leaving because they are not getting paid on time, friendlies being cancelled because they didn’t have enough players, closures of sections of Hillsborough on health and safety, managers leaving after months of trying to and finally at the end of it all, a winding up petition from HMRC, a 12 point deduction and a fall into administration. Getting 12 points deducted and being in administration might not be everyone’s idea of a good time but it’s actually the most positive thing that has happened for Sheffield Wednesday and has led to the much hated Mr Chansiri losing any control of what happens at Sheffield Wednesday and at Hillsborough.

Danny Rohl had kept the playing side of things afloat over the past two seasons, but he had finally had enough this summer and eventually managed to free himself from his contract before ultimately replacing Russell Martin at Glasgow Rangers. It is widely reported that Rohl was Sport Republic’s first choice to be Saints manager this season, but they bulked at the compensation demands of Sheffield Wednesday and instead, went for the cheap option of Will Still, who was of course out of work at the time and so the compensation that we saved by not appointing Danny rRohl has probably been handed out in the severance packages for Will Still and his coaches, so that’s the very definition of a false economy. I am sure they will have learn their lesson and won’t go for any more cheap options.

Sheffield Wednesday appointed last year‘s assistant Henrik Pederson and he has been dealing with all the shit that comes with being Sheffield Wednesday manager this season. They have managed just the one win, which is mentioned purely because it was against Portsmouth, and after last weeks draw with fellow relegation favourites Norwich, find themselves on -4 points and flat last in the table of course.

Things reached a nadir for Sheffield Wednesday when they had to bring in Joe Lumley on an emergency loan but to be fair to Joe, he did okay in his two games, one of which was played in front of a 7000 crowd at Hillsborough that included 4000 Middlesbrough fans and 3000 boycott-breaking Wednesday fans, and the first game post administration, which was played in the front of 28,000.

Joe won’t be there today of course, having gone back to his parent club Bristol City, but Yan Valery will, having moved to Sheffield Wednesday from Angers, where he moved to after leaving Saints. Yan, and of course has that ridiculous goal at Old Trafford on his CV and now plays in midfield and hopefully, despite being a player who always had a little bit about him, won’t be pinging one in from 30 yards today.

In Sheffield Wednesday, we find a team that are guaranteed to play with a lot of spirit which is born from virtually being forced to put out the same starting eleven in every game. Saints will need to show the relatively decent levels of spirit we showed at QPR on Wednesday night and that old cliché will apply whereby if we work as hard as they do, our better players should come to the fore and win us the game.

This is hopefully the last game in Tonda Eckert’s temporary assignment in charge of the team and today will tell us more about him after the scratchy win at QPR. Does he have the guts to change the goalkeeper again and therefore admit he got that wrong on Wednesday, which he clearly should do? Does he have the guts to go with a back four at home against the team with less goals than anyone in the Championship this year? I doubt he will do either to be honest and in truth, we should win regardless.

Once again it cannot be overstated how important it is to win at home. This is the majority of your fan base and though home supporters are not as vocal as away supporters, we all saw and heard what happened at the Preston game. It’s ironic that Sport Republic created the Northam End standing so we get more vocal backing of the team but so far, the main thing it’s brought is a more vocal displeasure against the owners. Against Preston, the main bulk of the anger was heard coming out of the Northam End and I do wonder whether we would’ve had that, with the ground in the old configuration.

Team news and just the one change with Jay Robinson I assume rested, and Finn Azaz coming into the team.

The first thing to know is that Sheffield Wednesday don’t know what they’re doing in defence in particular, as THB chips in a cross from the right hand side and the goalkeeper Horvath leaves it and it hits defender Fusier and is pretty close to apologising its way over the line before the defender gets back to clear it.

It a matter of time though (as much as it can ever be with us) and Scienza carries the ball from halfway and puts it perfectly into the path of Manning and his low cross is taken in his stride by a great first touch by Jander and as the defender slams in to into try and block it, it bounces off Jander and the goalkeeper makes a complete bollocks of it as it goes through his hands and drops over the line before it’s cleared. Goal line tech 1 Sheffield Wedneday 0

For once Saints, rather than going to shit, look to pile on the pressure again having scored and Armstrong take aim from 30 yards but it’s deflected narrowly over the bar. More Saints forward thinking possession and Scienza puts a cross in from the left which goes over everybody and Fellows retrieves it before turning and taking on the entire Wednesday defence before ending up back on the edge of the penalty area and slotting a little ball through to Azaz, who doesn’t have to break stride and rolls it across the keeper and into the net for his first Saints goal. Excellent play by the two Championship proven players who we signed.

18 minutes and what the fuck is going on. Anyway, normal services then resumed as we doze off and allow Wednesday some chances with Stephens thinking he was Steven Gerrard for a moment and attempting a crossfield ping. IN case you didn;t know, he’s not Steven Gerrard or even Jannik Vestergaard and he picks out Amass in the centre of midfield. He turns away from Azaz and Fellows and easily finds his way between Jander and Downes before taking aim from the edge of the box and he scuffs it but it’s still got enough on it to beat the dive of the goalkeeper. Fucks sake. It’s another one where you are questioning but deep down know that the keeper should’ve stopped it. More Bazball.

Now we’ve gone to shit on Wednesday are playing with great spirit with Cademarteri finding himself completely unmarked about 8 yards out and this time we are grateful to Baz for making a sharp save down low to his left.

We clearly need to focus on putting pressure on Wednesday’s poor defending because the next time we go forward, THB plus a lovely ball down the right to Armstrong, who bundles his ways past half-arsed challenges and hits it, with the goalkeeper again making a right bollocks of it. Fellows piles in and the ball goes loose to Azaz who knocks it goalwards but Fusier gets back to clear it off the line.

The bigger concern is at our end where we are still too easy to play through, with Wednesday building up comfortably before finding Bannon on the left. He stands across to the far place which sees Baz and three defenders totally miscommunicating and Baz flaps it down and has to tip over the resulting shot.

Half time and the nagging feeling that this game should be wrapped up by now but it isn’t. Wednesday are very poor when you get into their half but if we don’t work hard enough and they can be a bit of a threat. Tonda makes his mark at halftime with Flynn Downes coming off, I assume because of some sort of injury but the sub coming on is not Joe Aribo, who you would expect, but Barnaby Williams an 18-year-old lad out of the Academy.

Away we go knocking it about and the ball is out with THB on the right hand side and he gets his head up and plays a long ball forward and Adam Armstrong dummies Iorfa on halfway and it through on goal. A lot to do still but he chops inside a defender and then superbly pokes it into the net with the outside of his right foot. Brilliant finish and that really should be game over.

Wednesday still giving it a go and we really shouldn’t be letting them have this much of a say in the direction of travel of this particular game. It’s the 65th minute substitution round and Scienza is replaced with Jay Robinson and he combines with Fellows on the right and fellows puts a lovely cross into the middle which Azaz meets on the penalty spot and I don’t know what part of his head he used to head it, but it wasn’t the bit that would direct it anywhere near the goal.

Nothing much happens until with about ten to go when Azaz and Fellows are replaced with Roerslev and Damion Downs. It’s still Sheffield Wednesday having the majority of the game but not really carving out any dangerous chances. Roerslev then picks up an injury so we are treated to the sight of Josh Q playing right wingback and if you’ve never seen a 6 foot 5 player trying to do something creative in the opposition penalty area, then you do today as Josh makes a huge bollocks of trying to chop past the defender and a glorious chance for a fourth goal disappears. Not his fault, just amazing.

Well, it’s nice to win a fucking game at home. The outcome was never in doubt once Adam Armstrong scored just after half-time and you could argue that you just be happy with three points and move on to next week. However, we have to look at the game critically and I can’t quite shake the feeling that we made quite heavy weather of beating a very average team and I feel that everything said in praise of the team or individual players in this particular game has to be very heavily caveated by looking at the state of the opposition. You can only beat what’s in front of you though, and that is what the team and Tonda Eckert have done both at QPR in midweek and at home to Sheffield Wednesday today.

We looked great at the start of the game with the two early goals being reward for our approach and attacking intent. We couldn’t keep it going though and immediately started struggling in midfield which I think is a limitation of the formation that we play with just the two guys in there, and it was from that area that Harry Amass managed to get himself free to fire in a shot from the edge of the box which once again, the goalkeeper has to save and once again, he doesn’t.

The somewhat mystifying half-time substitution of replacing Flynn Downes Patient Zero with Barnaby Williams was one that we got away with and we wouldn’t have got away with it against a better team. Williams is neat and tidy and didn’t look out of place on his debut, bar the lack of physicality in the centre of midfield, which would 100% have cost us against a better team. No need to worry about presence in midfield after today though, with Oriol Romeu being paraded on the pitch before the game and I very much doubt that this situation will arise again. Eckerts explanation was that he had been working with the under 21’s and knew what Barnaby Williams was plausible enough but even so, Joe Aribo must know if he doesn’t know already that his time at Saints is done.

Matt Le Tissier was on the pitch before the game and he talked about how this team needed to score one goal and then immediately have the mindset to go out and score a second one and then a third one and it’s ironic that was exactly what we needed to do today. Having started so well and got two goals in front it really should’ve been a case that we put Sheffield Wednesday to the sword and won by five or six. That’s what a good team would’ve done. We can’t expect that sort of thing given where we are at the moment but we should not have allowed Sheffield Wednesday to get back into the game and that is something we still really have to work on. Keep turning them round keep them worrying about us attacking and not just sitting off and dicking around with the ball in our own half.

There were impressive performances today from a few and though Scienza won the stadium man of the match award, I would say that deserved to go to Adam Armstrong because not only did he score a really well taken goal but he also didn’t stop sprinting to close down the opposition for the entire 90 minutes and once again, like he did at QPR, his hold up play was decent by comparison to what we expect.

Scienza buzzed around with good effect especially in the first half and it was a best performance in a Saints shirt by Finn Azaz who showed what he’s all about, picking out good forward passes and managing to get himself to a position to score the second goal following brilliant work by Tom Fellows out on the right, though he is still being restricted by having to play as a wingback.

One of the reasons I don’t like three at the back is because it leaves you one light further up the pitch but at least today we were trying to put that right with both Jack Stephens and THB taking it in turns to break into the midfield, usually carrying the ball with them. THB in particular looked comfortable in this role and it was more like the defender that we had two years ago. The pass through to help set up Armstrong‘s goal was not the only one he played today.

If you’re being hyper-critical, you would say the last half hour died on its arse a little bit because we had no control in midfield mainly, but the job was done and with our home record being what it was, you just have to just be grateful that we got over the line. Maybe we were managing the game and just keeping them at arms length. Either way, three points and a happy stadium. Isn’t that nice? A week certainly is a long time in football.

Even though it shouldn’t, the clamour for Tonda Eckert to be given the permanent job will ramp up. Not for me as I don’t believe that one weeks experience on the job and a scrappy win at QPR followed by a win against a team on -4 points, is enough to qualify you for one of the best jobs in the EFL. Who can guess what the hell Sport Republic are thinking or about to do however. You certainly can;t trust Sport Republic to do the obvious thing or the right thing. What we do know is that the thought of the prospect of Gary O’Neil taking over were given very short shift by the Northam End, again using their collective voice to send a message, the message being “Fuck Gary O’Neil”.

I was impressed by the spirit of Sheffield Wednesday and the way they tried to play. They were set up to be defensive to start with but the early goal killed that for them. After that they had a go rather than just trying to keep the score down and playing low-block boring shite on the edge of their own penalty area, which made for a relatively entertaining game. Good luck to them for the rest of the season and I hope they managed to pull some sort of miracle out of the bag and stay up. The chances are of course massively against it. Maybe it was our plan to let them have the ball in the second half and break on them, or maybe it wasn’t.

International break now and it should be the time when we confirm a new permanent manager but as I’ve already said, who knows what Sport Republic are going to do. I would not be at all surprised if one way or another, Tonda Eckert he’s in the dugout when we travel to play Nathan Stone Island Jones and his Charlton Athletic team at The Valley in a couple of weeks time.

Until then, we’ll listen to the list of names being trotted out by the mainstream media and which ever one they decide to favour this week to boost the betting. My advice is to hide away and wait for the outcome. My advice to Sport Republic is that being manager of Saints is a great job so go and get someone worthy of it.

Up the fucking Saints.