Roger Moore scores: on a losing streak

There I was, 3.7 litres of Quattro delivering 268 of my own horses as I powered away from the six hapless ones I had backed to no avail, when disaster nearly strikes. Exiting the Cheltenham car park, a man in a brown suit steps out without a second glance.

As I slam the anchors, the nonchalant twitch of appreciation tells me all I need to know. Harry Redknapp has narrowly avoided an Olympic style brand on his forehead, and I've missed my opportunity to top Matty, Lawrie and the late-great Ossie as the Southampton legend bar none.

With a smile and a wave, Lord Voldemort disappears into the rows of Range Rover Sports and S-Class Mercs where doubtless he spent the next two hours counting his winnings without a second thought on the plight of his ‘spiritual home'.

My passengers could see the funniest of funny sides; ‘Southampton fan saves Redknapp's life' was the meat for the evening meal, and went a good way to providing the entertainment over breakfast too.

But joking aside, would I have hit him had I known who was coming? Or at least just braked that little bit later – late enough to give Joe Jordan his grisliest view since sitting on the bench at St Andrew's. And truthfully, the answer is no.

You see, a lot of blame is laid on Voldemort; so much in fact that you could be fooled into thinking he really did murder Harry Potter's parents. It's true, he was manager when we were relegated and when a 3-0 lead at home inexplicably became a 4-3 reversal. But looking back, beyond the crass nature of his departure, to the way we played football under his management, was it really so much worse than now?

I think the masses would have us believe that the blame for our current lowly position lies fairly and squarely with the previous regime. The truth if you look a little deeper is that we're a worse team now than at any time in the past three years because, fundamentally, the league tables tell no lies.

The start of this season was not the calamity some have claimed. True, we didn't start at the pace foolishly predicted, but I came here to proclaim we had stopped the rot, and I stand by it. We had turned defeats into draws, and but for a finisher, were a decent side playing mainly attacking football.

Our home displays against Reading and Crewe were genuinely good football matches and, but for some woeful finishing, the latter might have been a hockey score.

So too Derby and Millwall away. The former, undone by some indifferent refereeing and the latter a most one-sided 2-0 as you are likely to see. Coventry fans knew they had ridden their luck, Stoke had been fortunate to get nil and a top-half finish at least was assured.

In all, while not the table-topping fallen giants, a fair start to the season with some exceptional performances from three players no longer here, including the previous Captain. And therein, as Mr Shakespeare was prone to say, lies the rub.

For ‘pulling in the same direction' read – selling our best players. The very idea that Nigel Quashie, arguably our best player of early season alongside Claus Lundekvam, was somehow a disruptive influence is laughable.

Sometimes the man who tried too hard maybe, but looking at our current midfield it's impossible to pretend it is in any way improved by Quashie's absence.

And so has the new management team justified a re-building job worthy of Krakatoa. If this is the way these guys build, I'll remember to give them a miss when the porch needs re-roofing for fear they'll pull the house down in the process.

There's a difference between clearing out deadwood and deforestation! Are any of the players who have come in actually that much better than those who left? Madsen has as many goals in as many starts for us as Fuller has for Ipswich, Rasiak probably slightly less but when a striker gets past one goal here the nosebleed is enough to keep them out for a week.

Am I being too harsh on the new management? Possibly. Do they need time? Undoubtedly. But is it getting better? The answer is no. There are no signs of confidence, of enjoyment or of motivation in the camp. Truth is, we've never looked worse to me.

So, why did I let Voldemort go? Because he's going to keep Portsmouth up and remind us why we should have handed him the purse strings and left him be, that's why.

And maybe then Rupert will understand how football works, at last.