There can be no doubt that Sport Republic and those running the club on a day to day basis, but has the club turned the corner with the appointment of Technical Director Johannes Spors after the sacking of Ivan Juric.

It is fair to say that Sport Republic are not very popular with a sizable chunk of the Southampton fanbase after the debacle that has been this season, but the mistakes they have made can be pinpointed.

Just over a year ago things looked rosy at St Mary's. Director of football Jason Wilcox had steadied the ship and we were in the top 4 of the Championship and closing in on the top 2, hopes were high that we were at least moving forward after several years of treading water under Gao and the relegation of 2022/23 season.

But then Jason Wilcox left for Manchester United and Sport Republic sat on their hands, instead of appointing a replacement, they left it to those inhouse to run the club and whether it was the decision of CEO Phil Parsons or Sport Republic, is up for debate.

From afar it looks like Sport Republic made the mistake of trusting those in charge of the club and remaining hands off for too long, right from the start and they have paid the price for this.

Without an experienced Director of football at the helm, we floundered in the summer, we had no one calling the shots, the transfer window was poor, although we made some good signings, Russell Martin seemed loathe to play most of those who arrived, good or bad, he had no one overseeing him.

If we had a DOF in place then surely things might have been different, Martin would have had someone to counsel him , point out where he was going wrong and ultimately not let him continue with his suicidal possession football game.

Martin stayed in the job for too long and when it came to finally replacing him we still had no DOF in place, although I would suspect that by this time Johannes Spors was advising the club from afar.

Ivan Juric was a disaster from the start, whoever's choice he was, it is hard to find a positive aspect of his short tenure as Southampton manager, he seemed to divide the squad, ostracise players and generally although escaping relegation was going to be a tough task, he didn't just fail to take us forward, he moved us backwards when it came to having the foundations for next season.

So the sacking of Juric yesterday was perhaps the first time in a year that it showed that we had someone actually making decisions and more than that, the first time in a year it was someone actually with experience in doing the job they are tasked with on the footballing side of things.

So it could be said that Monday 7th April was ground zero for Southampton FC, the day that we reached rock bottom and wiped the slate clean and started afresh.

That is on the footballing side of things, to be fair off the field, Saints have finally started to get things right in terms of the commercial side of things, most fans don't care about fanzones, corporate sponsorship and hospitality etc, but without all of these things a football club cannot flourish, whether you are Liverpool and Manchester United who make multi millions from their foreign supporters or a League 2 club, even a local club like Eastleigh, AFC Totton or Sholing, what enables you to keep competitive is your ability to bring in money from off the field through sponsorship, hospitality & more.

So Saints do have some foundations to build on, things are not rotten to the core as some would have you believe, most judge how well the club is being run purely on the League position, nothing wrong with that, 99% of fans are only interested in how the team does on the field, not everything that goes on behind the scenes, but that just gives them a perception, not the actual reality.

So if the club is to start moving forwards again, the appointment of Johannes Spors is probably crucial and the fact that he dealt with the major problem now and not left it to fester is a positive thing.

Now hopefully under Simon Rusk & Adam Lallana the morale in the squad can start to be repaired and behind the scenes Spors can start to plan for next season.

So will this be the start of a new era or just a continuation of the old one, at this moment in time we don't know, but if we keep on dragging up the past, then we have a bigger chance of repeating it than moving forward.

Hopefully some of our players who were ostracised under Martin & Juric and who wanted away will take a positive viewpoint and now want to stay, likewise with us the supporters, yes mistakes have been made, yes they were bad ones and yes they will probably make more, no one is completely perfect, but we need to put that in the past and concentrate on the future.

The major reasons why we went to pot this season have been rectified, we finally have a football man again at the helm to make footballing decisions, we have to wipe the slate clean and give them a chance.

Toxic atmospheres never result in success, no matter how much we all moan in the pub or on social media, it will not change a single thing of the last 3 years or so, the only thing that can be changed is what we do next and how we do it and from that perspective the future is unwritten.

All Photos Via Reuters