I have had more people stop and talk to me about the 9-0 defeat than I think I had in the days when we won the Cup.

For instance, Kevin Keegan and I attended the wonderful Sandhurst, the army centre, as a result of an auction item put in Nicky Banger’s recent event on behalf of the Knights Foundation.

It was for ten people to have lunch there with us and of course they were all from Southampton, it was only three days after the Leicester game and you can imagine what the talk was all about.

One of the most unfortunate things for the manager and particularly the players was not only that it was at home but also live on television which meant not just the 30,000 or so supporters in the pouring rain witnessed it but it was seen all around the world.

The weather on the night was as if a film was being made. In the floodlights you could see the rain wasn’t coming down in straight lines but being blown all over the place by a terrific wind.

Our players gave the impression they couldn’t wait to get in out of the cold whereas Brendan Rodgers’ men just got on with it, if anything moved around quicker, and I don’t think anyone could argue that they deserved the win or that it could have been double figures.

As an ex-manager my mind went immediately to how Ralph would be feeling.

When my wife and I were driving home we were passing the hotels along the waterfront and I said to Anne ‘I don’t know where he lives but if I knew he was in one of those I would pull in and have a coffee or a drink with him.’ I can tell you he probably never slept that night. He had to face the media. He took the blame himself and it must have been the worst night of his career.

A lot of the people who stopped me and a lot of the media predicted the club would sack the manager. This is, of course, what always happens. It’s not the players or the people behind the scenes selecting and signing the players that come to the club.

I think the club should be praised for not acting hastily, for standing by the manager and giving him the opportunity to turn things round.

Obviously he couldn’t have had harder opposition in his next couple of games but from all accounts the effort put in on the field by the players in the Cup tie was a lot more than the Friday night.

Talking about managers and numbers, seven, which is normally lucky, came up recently.

I was informed by one of the supporters that James Ward-Prowse in his first seven years as a professional had had seven managers. I couldn’t believe it, bearing in mind that Ted Bates, bless him, and myself had 30 years between us.

Also, VAR, which is in the newspapers just about every day now, came up because Southampton have had seven goals against us disallowed because of technology.

Talking of that I am not sure I agree with one of my former players who I signed as a youngster, Matt Le Tissier, when he said VAR is doing a good job.

Looking at the Ryan Bertrand sending off in slow motion I personally did not think it was a red card.

He was falling over because of the tackle, he wasn’t looking at the other man, his left leg did land on the shin of the Leicester player but the referee who was only about ten yards off didn’t stop the game.

It could have been because Leicester were attacking and got their first goal but what it meant was that from then on though I’m not saying we would have necessarily won but we would have had 11 men on the pitch as opposed to ten.

I tend to think that they should have an ex-manager as well as a referee looking at the VAR footage and helping to make decisions.

As I’ve always said a lot of the foreign gentlemen coming into our game are coaches rather than managers but I think Ralph will understand now that the management bit needs to come out more than ever in the dressing room between him and the players for the next few games, particularly those at home where we are yet to win a game, to win back some of those supporters who were leaving even before half time.