15 games gone and another international break—and a good opportunity to have a look at where Saints are this season, with roughly a third of the season gone.

Since the summer, we of course had Spygate to get over. This was significant, considering it was a huge, unprecedented set of circumstances and could have gone badly wrong if the forecasts of doom had come to pass. We could have had a player exodus, we could have had no one wanting to join us, and we could have lost the manager – either through choice or FA decree. However, here we are in the play-off positions, above West Ham, having beaten them away from home; having beaten the Visitors from down the road for the first time in the league since 2004, with ten men as well; and having six wins and a draw from seven home games. We are 5 points off the top. Overall, there have been a lot of things to be encouraged by, but there have also been challenges, and there are a few clouds on the horizon.

On the pitch is, of course, where it matters. There were a few concerns about the state of the squad when the transfer window closed and these have largely turned out to be justified.

The defence on the whole been very good this season. We had a little bit of a thing for a while where we weren’t keeping any clean sheets, but the bottom line was that we were only conceding one goal a game. People began to realise that that wasn’t too bad when, all of a sudden, we were the team that had conceded the fewest goals in the entire division. Most of that defensive stability was down to the genius signing of Keven Schlotterbeck, who stepped into a THB-sized hole and, though different in profile, forged an excellent defensive unit with James Bree, Ryan Manning and one of Jack Stephens or Nathan Wood. Completing the defensive unit, of course, is the masterful Daniel Peretz, who is comfortably the best goalkeeper in the Championship.

The injury setback that is going to keep the BFG out for the next six games or so is really going to test our resources. Not only is he a leader in that he’s the most dominant defender we have, he’s also provided a balance previously missing, with being left footed – allowing Stephens and Wood to have one less thing to worry about. Before we signed him, we were all worried about how those two would combine as a central defensive pairing, but the current thinking seems to be that it will be Jack Stephens and Zach Abbott in the middle, which just screams “lightweight” to me. I feel that we need to have Nathan Wood step in while the BFG is injured, but there seem to be issues behind the scenes there. Hopefully, this international break can sort things out because, as far as Zach Abbott is concerned, there is a very wide chasm between coming on and playing okay under no pressure against the team at the bottom of the league, and being a regular starter expected to play against Will Lankshear in a couple of weeks.

Midfield has also been an interesting area of the team this year, with a combination of Flynn Downes, Caspar Jander, James Ward-Prowse and Cam Bragg taking up the central roles. JWP’s signing wasn’t welcomed by everybody but, with injuries and suspensions affecting the other three at various times, his metronomic availability has been a bit of a godsend. Like last season, the issue seems to be finding the correct balance. Nominally, it’s been Downes and Ward-Prowse in midfield, and it always seems to me that they are positioned the wrong way round with JWP being the deeper of the two and Downes is further forward. I get it from a pressing point of view, but it does nothing for our creativity because that’s not the strongest part of Flynn’s game, of course. Caspar Jander could elevate the performance levels in midfield and I can see us going to a midfield three in the not too distant future. An additional issue in midfield over the last few games has been caused by the attack, with Finn Azaz having to be pushed forward – more on that later.

Cyle Larin has proved to be a magnificent signing for us for the amount we paid for him, both for what he did at the end of last season and, mainly, for what he did at the start of this one. However, everyone highlighted that there was no proven backup for him following the departure of Ross Stewart and that Larin was going to get injured at some point. Well, that happened. Given that Divin Mubama was brought in as that backup, he has, quite frankly, been incredibly and predictably disappointing so far. You could argue that he hasn’t been given many minutes, but there’s a reason for that, and the reason has stared us all squarely in the face when he has had half an hour or so on the pitch and done absolutely nothing. The early goal he got against Stoke has masked a somewhat nondescript spell on the south coast so far.

As a result, Lewis Dobbin has been pushed into emergency service as a central striker, and he is basically an Adam Armstrong regen, in that it does not suit him to lead the line and he needs to be picking up the ball deeper or wider and away from traffic. Though Armstrong had massive flaws in his game, he could be relied upon to stick the ball in the net at this level. So far, Dobbin has not really looked like being in any way prolific, his one goal being a tap-in at West Ham that he really couldn’t miss. It’s the lack of conviction when he gets a sight of goal that is the worry in that regard. His first touch is also really not great, so even if no defender is tight to him, he often ends up losing the ball on his touch. If a defender is tight to him, then it’s usually game over as far as us retaining the ball is concerned. He is the best option when Larin is injured however and that’s a problem.

While the club can be congratulated for recruiting Larin for the fee they did, the main issue with the squad is certainly up front. With Larin being injured and Dobbin being selected, we have had to push Finn Azaz further forward, which has had a knock-on effect of weakening the midfield. This is possibly why we have been overrun there in a few games, because there’s a bloody great hole between our attack and midfield that Azaz usually plugs.

The first-choice wingers are Kuryu Matsuki and Leo Scienza, who have both had their moments this season. Matsuki has proved to be a regular goal threat from the right-hand side and has a football intelligence that many players lack. He does seem to struggle a little bit with fitness, so I don’t think he’s capable of playing three games in a week, but I’ll come on to the options later. Scienza, from the left, has caused enough chaos to more than justify his place in the team, despite his goals having dried up a bit this season. He is involved in a big proportion of our goals, despite it seems, playing injured for much of this season. His season started with being scythed down at Watford on the opening day and it’s been that way ever since. What he adds adds to the team is pace and trickery that no one else has. If he’s playing with a knock—and it looks like he is—he is not going to be as confident in physical challenges, and this seems to have affected him, particularly recently. I always personally have a lot more time for players who have proved that they’ve got something in the past and, even though he is frustrating at times, he is still a difference-maker for us.

There can be no argument about these two being first choice because the other options have not achieved anything of note. Last year, Matsuki and Tom Fellows had equal minutes but Fellows has gone (sideways and) backwards since last season. Sam Edozie is exactly the same as he’s been for the last four and a half years: very hit and miss, with the odd moment, but certainly not enough to justify offering him a new contract for next season. Jay Robinson is an interesting option to bring back in January, though it will be tough to bring him back from Monza with no guarantee of first-team football at St Mary’s. He would, however, be much better than the current reserve options we have. Besides, there are a lot of games before January.

Overall, the start of the season has been good, as we have overturned the points deduction and are in the play-off positions. Putting Spygate behind us was a huge thing, and this was largely achieved with the huge signings of Peretz and Larin from last season. Their signings calmed the fears of the fanbase and made us look forward. The motivation of the players who were here last year cannot be questioned, given the way they have gone about the opening block of games this season. However, the stated aim was to be in the top two, and I believe we need to be there by Christmas and take opportunities when they are presented to us and not lose to the team marooned at the bottom of the league.

We have to stop losing these stupid games against poor teams away from home – defeats at Watford, Wrexham and Preston is just not good enough. It is slightly strange because we always perform against the better teams – home and away, so what’s going on there? Are we complacent or is it that Tonda Eckert is trying too hard to get an edge that we don’t need against the poorer sides and overcomplicating things and worrying too much about what they are going to do, rather than just letting them worry about us. We have to be confident in our ability to put these teams away without being arrogant about it. I do think that Tonda needs to trust the players more to get the job done and not give us scenarios like Bolton, where we completely changed our formation to cater for Bolton’s attacking right-back, when we should really have been concentrating on getting the ball to Scienza as much as possible so their right-back didn’t have a chance to come forward.

There is nothing in this league to be frightened of. The Championship season has thrown up its usual surprises. There are some teams you wouldn’t necessarily expect in the top eight and there is no one who is threatening to do a Coventry from last season and run away with it. Birmingham would no doubt disagree, seeing as they are top at the moment but that’s a bit of a strange one – though not as strange as Stoke being level on points with them in third place. Our friends in the north, Middlesbrough, are currently in second place and, like ourselves, they have been brilliant at times and very average at others. Everyone knows that they struggled to score goals last year and that Will Lankshear has come in and been the answer to their prayers. However, when he doesn’t play, they don’t win. An incredibly tame defeat to Wrexham last time out really highlighted that they have no real back up for their main striker, in the same way that we don’t.

Wolves and West Brom look well origanized and that they will be kicking around near the top of the league all season. Early pace-setters Swansea are showing signs of falling away, having lost four out of their last five. West Ham have the squad to win the league comfortably, but they had Nuno Espírito Santo. They don’t have him anymore and have gone for the ultimate Championship fix: Scott Parker, who will have the additional motivation of having been a West Ham favourite back in the day. It seems right now that Sheffield United and Norwich can be expected to get in amongst it by the end of the season.

There have been some surprises down at the bottom, because I don’t think anyone really expected Preston and Derby to be in the relegation zone. I certainly didn’t expect Burnley to come down from the Premier League and have just one win out of 15 games. They seem to be an absolute disaster and have just sacked their left-field manager, who was only brought in at the start of the season. Lincoln have had some encouraging results, but you can tell that they, like Bolton are going to be around the bottom six all season, as are Watford and Charlton. Watford are the usual mess, with the top of the club being the usual shambles, and Charlton started the season well, but Nathan Jones has struggled to arrest their slide down the table.

Our visitors from down the road, who couldn’t beat us with 11 players against our 10, propelled themselves up the league by winning a few games after that Derby defeat. For a couple of weeks, they occupied a ridiculously false position in the table. I confidently predict that they will sink back to their natural lower-mid-table level as the league unfolds.

Of the teams in the middle section, you could look at Wrexham and Millwall as underachievers. Millwall were always going to struggle to maintain the momentum from last season that took them into the playoffs, whereas Wrexham are just not very good, smug as all hell and, after taking the moral high ground by taking the piss out of Spygate when we played them, they then got fined for fielding ineligible players in a couple of games. I’m still waiting for the funny Rob and Ryan video about that. If you are going to take the piss out of other teams, then you had better be whiter than white.

So, here we are and our next three games are Derby at home, Sheffield United away and Middlesbrough at home. Before the January window opens we have a further six games, including Wolves and West Ham. The most immediately pressing issue is how we deal with the fact that Keven Schlotterbeck is unavailable for probably all bar two of those fixtures at best. How we cope with that over the next few weeks will be the key to where we are at Christmas and whether we are serious top-two challengers, as we should be. He’s a big miss – the defending, the balance, the progressive passing and the goal threat from set-pieces. Others have to step up. January will, of course, be key as well, when we have to address the backup striker position and the issues we have on the wing.

Overall, the start of the season has been good, but it could—and probably should—have been better. There are many things to work on, but it wouldn’t be fun if it was easy, now would it?