"A mess" - Flynn Downes claim made as Southampton fall behind Leeds and Ipswich | OneFootball

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Circumstances have started to go wrong for Southampton once again, during what is ultimately viewed as a season-defining period of the Championship campaign for clubs harbouring different aims.

After a rocky opening to his tenure, Russell Martin masterminded a club-record unbeaten streak which lasted 25 games between September 30th and February 13th, before suffering a 3-1 away defeat at the hands of Bristol City in front of the Sky Sports cameras.

That outing followed on from a bizarre 5-3 home success against Huddersfield Town, and despite bouncing back from the Ashton Gate with an away success over West Bromwich Albion, Saints have followed that up with consecutive 2-1 home defeats at the hands of Hull City and Millwall.

Here at Football League World, we put the question of what's gone wrong at St Mary's to our Saints fan pundit, Martin Sanders.

He believes that Martin's decision to change too much following Flynn Downes' second absence of the season has played a key part.

"Flynn Downes is missing, which is a big miss for us," Sanders began. "In a nutshell, he's a big miss, but we've made it worse by tweaking so much to accommodate his absence."

"We were without him over Christmas and Shea Charles played in that position, and we carried on playing the same way. However, this time, they'd tweaked so much that on the weekend, we had Jack Stephens switching between centre-back, right-back and central midfield," he elaborated.

Southampton's problems have failed to go away

As previously mentioned, Southampton were involved in a crazy victory over Huddersfield on February 10th, but that didn't come without major flaws that saw the Terriers race into a 2-0 half-time lead, as well as making it 3-2 before the Saints completed a remarkable turnaround.

Sanders believes that the squad have been somewhat devoid of confidence and ideas in recent weeks, which stems from that encounter.

"Confidence is a big thing, and I don't know why, in the first 45 minutes against Huddersfield, we looked like a side that had no confidence, which is very odd when you've gone 25 games unbeaten.

"It was 24 games at that time, and I don't understand it," he continued. "We have to find confidence and continuity very quickly, because Leeds will win the league if they carry on how they're going and Ipswich have been brilliant."

How do Southampton quickly address their problems?

One concerning statistic from their defeat to Millwall on Saturday would be that Southampton lost the xG battle to a side who have averaged just 0.97 goals per game across 34 Championship matches.

In the recent defeats and the first half against Huddersfield, Southampton failed to impose any threat and were played at their own game by the opposition - particularly Hull, who forced Saints to go long rather than their preferred method of building from the back, and when they did, Hull's attacking threats were on the likes of Gavin Bazunu, Jan Bednarek and Taylor Harwood-Bellis like a rash.

It's clear that Downes' influence on the side has been missed, but as Sanders referenced, adjusting tactics as a result of his injury has been so detrimental to their chances of automatic promotion, as they now sit five points behind Leeds and Ipswich.

Whilst it sounds cliché, it's imperative that Martin goes back to the basics of his style before further cracks are laid bare, which could see them fall even further behind the sides in second and third, who have since gained ground on Leicester City.