THE manager and captain are admirable for being honest about their team but their latest admissions are scary.
Boss Russell Martin has pledged to pick from only players who are "really willing" to fight for the final two games of the season.
Jack Stephens, speaking to us at Leicester City, went one step further and admitted they "gave up" during Tuesday's 5-0 defeat.
Supporters are not idiots - Martin and Stephens are rightly pointing out what they all saw on a wretched night in the East Midlands.
Effort, fight and courage should be prerequisites for the privileged position players are in - and most in any dressing room appreciate that.
However, this loss continues a poor record against the better sides in the Championship this season, ahead of the playoffs next month.
They have lost four and won once against direct promotion rivals in Leicester, Ipswich and Leeds, one of whom will likely make the final.
Saints have only won four out of 11 attempts against the league's top seven, and nine of 21 matches against all top-half teams.
And it seems like almost every time the pressure is increased to the maximum, this Saints group crumples.
Playoff football is the most pressurised of the lot. Livelihoods - albeit not the players themselves - are on the line with every kick.
Saints had done so well with back-to-back-to-back home wins before snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at Cardiff City on Saturday.
Ahead of facing Leicester, Martin had asked the squad to prove to themselves they could mix it with the league's best.
They will need to do that to achieve the ambition set out at the start of the season, winning promotion back to the Premier League.
They were so far off the pace that the home side were probably embarrassed to beat them.
But we should be clear; the season is not over yet. Saints remain three wins away from salvation, whatever happens in the next week.
Of the last 13 Championship campaigns, 10 of the playoff final winners have finished third or fourth, with four winners coming fourth.
And despite what the performance at King Power suggests, Saints are still being wrongly discredited with one criticism.
It is a myth that they do not attack - they have more shots, passes into the final third and chances created than any team in the league.
When their forwards are on song, they can blow a team away. Up until Tuesday, no Championship team had scored more.
Therein lies the problem; on Tuesday, Leicester overtook that statistic. Saints have now conceded two goals a game over the last 15.
Swansea shipped 64 goals under Martin last season and from the start, it was evident the defensive record could be an issue again.
Saints (61) are heading towards being an even worse defence. Can you be victorious in playoffs needing three goals to win a game?
In eight of the last 10 seasons, the eventual playoff winners shipped less than 50 in the regular season - while eight of the last 11 playoff finals were won with a clean sheet.
You could argue the club made a mistake ahead of the season when they issued supporters an expectation to win the Championship.
Sport Republic chiefs laid out that ambition following relegation in May but the budget they were forced to set did not match it.
The £22million they could afford to spend, after more than £150million in sales, was spent on Shea Charles and Ross Stewart.
Both may prove to be good long-term signings but Charles has played only a third of minutes and Stewart has been injured all season.
New injuries in crucial positions have swept the rug from under Martin in the run-in and his best team has never been less clear.
Gavin Bazunu, Stuart Armstrong and Flynn Downes are critical to the way Saints play and the former two will not play again this season.
Martin recently professed that the team could not win without Jack Stephens in it and he will play every minute from here.
Yet he begrudgingly took the skipper out in search of balance, instead finding full-backs with no desire to defend their box and stop the cross.
The atmosphere at Staplewood was different in the wake of the defeat to Cardiff; it was a blow felt deeply.
Martin's demeanour too was noticeably different as he bombed straight to the stage for his press conference on Monday to preview Leicester.
Martin is not on social media but is sent comments and posts by loved ones - and, whether he admits it or not, it does affect him.
In addition to his team collapsing around him, Martin is being sued for a significant amount of money by his former club Swansea and the man who brought him here in the first place - Jason Wilcox - quit his post after nine months.
The Daily Echo recently asked Martin if he can make supporters any reassurances should the club fail to win promotion.
He responded: "I will do if we don't make the Premier League.
"But I'm really comfortable with the job in the Premier League or the Championship again, in terms of what's expected, what it's going to look like, how the owners feel, how Jason felt before he left.
"We're really honest but listen, the idea was to get promoted right now, this season. That's still the aim and it will be the aim until the very last second, until the very last breath of that game.
"If we don't do it then after that. I'm sure we'll have a more detailed chat on that, but the aim is to get to the Premier League - it's that simple."
It is obvious what failure would bring. A revamp of the squad with several key departures is considered likely.
If they were to go up, they would probably need a similarly sized overhaul anyway, to be competitive in the top division.
In just over a month, their fate will be sealed. Confidence in success may be dampened but they still boast a brilliant opportunity.
However little evidence has been given to suggest they can handle the nerves, much stranger things can happen than a good team winning.
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