SAINTS equalled their worst start to a Premier League season when they lost 3-1 at AFC Bournemouth on Monday evening.

They've earned one point from their first six games, the same amount we earned during the start of the 1998/99 campaign.

In fact, our bad run went on a little longer. We didn't pick up our second point until the ninth game of the season - ironically against Arsenal.

Despite our terrible start to the season, we managed to stay up thanks to a great run at the end of the season. 

Two decades on, that should still serve as proof that so many things can happen over the course of a long campaign. There are so many points still to fight for.

In a perfect world, you want to be on more points than we are at the moment. It's a bad start and it could potentially get a lot worse over the coming games.

We have to stick to it. Nobody is going to give up and quit because we only have one point up to now. Staying up becomes the only objective after the start we've had.

When I think back to our start in 1998/99, I never felt like we would be relegated. Even though everyone had written us off, I felt we had enough to stay in the division.

A big difference that I have noticed in today's game is that the bigger teams are even stronger. For Southampton, coming up as a newly promoted side, the dynamics are different.

We had been in the same division for a number of years and we got used to fighting and scrapping to stay up for a few seasons. We were battle-tested.

We were braced to scrap for every point we would earn. Home form was a big thing for us as well. We knew that we could beat anyone at The Dell on our day.


Having that belief is crucial. You need an unwavering mindset to turn things around. So long as there were still points to win, we knew we would do what we had to do.

If I flip my perspective to one of a supporter, it's difficult and frustrating to watch the club lose games. Monday evening was a particularly tough watch.

We can't make any excuses for the way Saints played in that game. You don't give yourself any chance of winning a game if you start it as badly as that.

Bournemouth had won it by halftime. They did all they needed to in the first 45 minutes because Southampton's game plan didn't work.

It was a shocking first half. You've got to call it for what it is. It was a bad way to concede the first goal and then we struggled to recover.

I hate saying bad things about Saints because I only ever want the club and the people involved to do well.

Hopefully, the result and performance at Bournemouth hurts everybody badly enough that it will cause a reaction.

However, a team hoping to bounce back from a terrible defeat would not want to face Arsenal, but that is the challenge that awaits Saints today.


Mikel Arteta's side are battling to win the league this season while we are scrapping to stay in it. Nobody expects us to get anything.

In a different scenario, this would be a game that the players can go into without any pressure. It would be a chance to earn some bonus points.

The reality of Southampton's situation means there is pressure on every game, none more so than their home fixture against Leicester immediately after the international break.

Football mirrors every walk of life. It's not during the good times that you discover what people's true characters are. You find that out during the difficult times.

Saints are in a difficult place at the moment. Form is a rollercoaster - as are the levels of pressure. Somehow the group need to believe they can get something from the game.

As a player, you find a way of building a mindset which allows you to park things aside to allow you to go into another game.


Russell Martin has a squad which has only been put together in recent months. There are a lot of players who have just arrived at the club.

There's been an element of remaining loyal to some of the guys that got us promoted. The players that have come in are learning on the fly.

In my day, if you were one of the 11 players given a starting shirt, it was down to you to perform at a level that meant you'd keep your shirt for the next game.

Each and every one of us will have a team that we feel is the strongest - but it's only Russell and his staff that get to pick the team.