Saints fans expected the club to launch a promotion push this season, but the situation has gone from bad to worse and now with it is looking like any lingering hopes we did have will peter out after a strange January transfer window.

The initial flurry of wins under Tonda Eckert slowed down and a poor Xmas period suggested that there were a couple of key signings needed in January and if they were made, then we could mount a decent push for the play off spots.

However the early business done was not encouraging, we loaned out the experienced Gavin Bazunu and in the other direction came an inexperienced keeper who although was a Bayern Munich player had barely played since signing for them in 2023 and whose only real experience was in the Israeli League.

This should have rung alarm bells, but the departure of Damion Downs to Hamburg on loan was greeted by most of the fanbase with glee, rather than wondering why we hadn't found a replacement first.

Likewise the departures of both Ronnie Edwards & Ryan Fraser, they have been marginalised under Eckert, but are still players who could do a job at Championship level, surely if you are serious about a promotion push, you want Edwards & Fraser in your squad rather than leaving it, at least unless you have replacements lined up.

Since then there has been little done, it seems that Joe Aribo and Sam Edozie are not as in demand as they thought they would be and are now content to get paid for doing nothing and the only incoming has been the return of James Bree from his loan at Charlton.

Perhaps this is a sign of where the club's ambitions lie for the rest of the season.

Now with only a few days left of the transfer window, we are being linked with absolutely no one, which seems to suggest that those who know transfer markets, the agents, the clubs themselves, the in the know journalists all know something that Southampton fans don't but suspect, that being we are not looking to buy this window but sell.

That seems to be that the club is giving up on promotion this season.

Saints supporters know where we are weak in certain areas and that we are downsizing and not improving in this window.

Perhaps they have something up their sleeve, but of they have they are concealing it well.

In truth the quality we already have in this squad should have been enough to have got us in the play off spots, perhaps it will still achieve that, after all we are only 7 points off 6th place, a run of wins would see the situation change quite quickly.

But things aren't changing, at Portsmouth we again saw a team underperform, the truth was we should have won, we again put ourselves in a winning position and again could not hold on to it.

The opposition see our weak points, they see defenders that can't mark and a goalkeeper who can't come off his line, the Pompey equaliser was similar to one of the goals at Doncaster, one of the goals against Hull and indeed the Pompey equaliser, clubs put the ball across our six yard box and the keeper is flapping and the defence is all at sea and the ball ended up in the net.

This was a key area that should have been dealt with this January and it has got worse.

So all the indications are that are business is done this window, at least in terms of incoming, if the rumours regarding Adam Armstrong & Taylor Harwood-Bellis turn out to be true, then we will be under no illusions where this season is going.

All Photos Via Reuters

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