Ralph Hasenhuttl is still the best manager Southampton had this season

Saints picked up 12 points in the Austrian’s 14 matches before he was sacked, while they have only claimed a further 11 in the next 17.

The brief era under Championship manager of the year Nathan Jones, his immediate successor, played a large role in that unwanted statistic.

Of course, they picked up only three points during the Welshman’s tenure – losing seven of his eight fixtures and beating Everton at Goodison Park.

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Under Ruben Selles, the Premier League points per game has actually marginally improved. While Jones scores a horrendous 0.375, Selles has achieved 0.89.

That is slightly better than Hasenhuttl – who was not without his flaws in his final season in charge at St Mary’s – with the Austrian recording 0.86.

Selles’s is bolstered by six points in his first three fixtures but the club are now winless in six and staring at Championship football if nothing changes.

All three are relegation form and that is why Saints, even with the likes of Romeo Lavia, James Ward-Prowse and more sit bottom of the division, four points adrift.

However, Hasenhuttl had the toughest job of all three managers this season. He did benefit from £100million of spending in the summer window.

But he was left without the striker he was told he was going to get and the chances missed by Che Adams in Hasenhuttl’s final games were telling.

Much of Jones’s tenure was marred by the same issue but even after £50million of January spending on forwards – not one of the three has scored a goal to this day.

Hasenhuttl was also left without a defensive midfielder after Romeo Lavia’s injury in August was followed by the sale of Oriol Romeu anyway.

This was after experience the likes of Nathan Redmond, Jack Stephens, Fraser Forster and Jan Bednarek had already departed on their respective moves.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles was recruited as a short-term solution to the midfield issue, with only Ward-Prowse and Ibrahima Diallo at the club playing in that position.

While Hasenhuttl was already taking on projects in Armel Bella-Kotchap at centre-back, Samuel Edozie on the wings and Sekou Mara up front, he was given another.

That was to try and inspire the timid Arsenal loanee, Maitland-Niles, who had been the subject of media reports questioning his readiness to play a team role.

Hasenhuttl himself was already worn over three years of battling to keep Saints in the top flight under the austerity of Gao Jisheng.

That was why he was given a new backroom team – to try and breathe some life back into the man who admitted he wanted to retire at the end of his contract.

Hasenhuttl had began to manage scared and in his final matches it was clear the preference was to not lose, rather than trying to risk a win.

He made mistakes in man-management and relationships had been burned with some inside the club – so this is not retrospective washing.

The Austrian was ultimately a man who had managed RB Leipzig to the Champions League in their debut season in the Bundesliga.

He is an elite-level coach who helped design a playbook to encompass the entirety of the men’s and older boys’ football at the club.

It is impossible to predict the outcomes of situations that never happened but it is hard to imagine Saints being worse if Hasenhuttl remained.

Surely they would have picked up more than the 11 in 17 that followed – it is more an indictment on the appointments that were made in replacement, in truth.

Equally, all things must end. Hasenhuttl's tenure was only shorter than Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp's respective concurrent Premier League reigns at the time of his departure.

It will likely be difficult to convince the top-level calibre of managers to put pen to paper on a new Saints project but it must be someone with the confidence to control.