Mark Hughes now has a chance to really stamp his mark on Saints, but he will know there is a lot of work to be done.

Thrust into the job in the closing stages of the last campaign there was just one target for Hughes – keep Saints up.

It didn’t really matter how it happened or how he did it, nor was it worth even contemplating the future given the short-term nature of the job he was employed for and his contract.

Having achieved it and ensured Saints retained Premier League status, the task now is for Hughes to build something of his own.

There could be no blame attached to him last season, even in defeat. It was not his doing, it was a difficult situation he inherited.

The challenge now is very different. With a full summer to work with the team, and expectations raised given how pleased supporters were that he kept the team up, the club wants more.

It wants progress, a return to where they were.

However, that is not going to be straightforward.

Hughes is still working with largely the same squad of players.

Saints have signed four, but one of those is, for now, a second choice goalkeeper. In an attacking sense having lost Dusan Tadic they have taken a chance that Mohamed Elyounoussi will be at least as good as the Serbian, but there are no guarantees.

The massively costly transfer mistakes Saints have made in recent years such as Sofiane Boufal and Guido Carrillo have had to be loaned out rather than sold.

That Saints have had to go down that route not only underlines the folly of those deals, but of course limits their spending power in the transfer market as the fees have disappeared out the window already and, without recouping something, there is not the money there to reinvest.

Saints so far have a net spend this summer in the region of £36m. That is effectively for three players given one sale. Plenty of clubs, and not ones dissimilar to Saints, are spending that on one player.

It’s basically the same sort of transfer plan as Saints have worked to for many years, with periods of success and, more recently, failure.

All of that, combined with a squad the majority of whom clearly struggled last season, makes it a tough job for Hughes.

It is not as simple as a bit of summer sun curing all ills and everybody coming back and suddenly being a great Premier League side.

There is no point in taking pre-season too seriously as a gauge of where a team is, especially three weeks out from the start of the new campaign, but there were some familiar problems on display at Derby.

Saints still had defensive frailties on show, and were not particularly threatening going forward.

Hughes is understandably keen to keep his options open and tried a couple of formations, starting out with was often a 3-4-2-1 but could revert to a deeper lying 5-4-1 out of possession.

In the second period he went to a back four as part of a 4-2-3-1 system.

He has options in most positions too, and players to return to the squad.

The key will be finding that winning formula.

At least we know Hughes has a proven track record at Premier League level, and certainly the support of the club and the fans to get it right.

It was never likely to be easy against Derby.

They are a week ahead in their preparations, and there was little chance a fortnight in China was likely to benefit Saints all that much in a playing sense. Whether it proves to be costly on that front we will find out in the opening weeks of the season.

Derby, in front of their home fans with Frank Lampard in charge for the first time, were always likely to have greater intensity.

They were sharper and, generally, better than Saints throughout.

Alex McCarthy came to the rescue for Saints a couple of times in the first half, most notably saving superbly from Tom Lawrence.

There wasn’t much to report in an attacking sense from Saints in the opening period.

One of the Saints debutants, Jannik Vestergaard, was introduced at half time and his aerial threat was obvious from the get-go as he won a header from a corner six yards out but could only pick out Scott Carson.

However, the need for him to get sharp quickly was clear on 58 minutes as he flew in to try and win the ball and missed it entirely, allowing former Pompey man David Nugent to break clear and open the scoring.

After Ryan Bertrand had a shot saved Derby made it 2-0 on 71 minutes as Lawrence waltzed past Wesley Hoedt and with Vestergaard unable to quite get across drilled a low shot past McCarthy.

It got worse before the final whistle as Florian Jozefzoon got in, McCarthy saved superbly but another Pompey boy in Mason Mount, son of former Havant and Newport manager Tony, was alert and had the simple task of sliding into the empty net.

Hughes will be all too aware there is still a lot to get right in the next few weeks.