Premier League: Well runs dry for the Saints

THE inevitable eventually happened for Southampton on Saturday, as Fulham’s 2-0 victory at St Mary’s condemned the Saints to the Championship in front of the less than impressed home support.

That UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, a Saints supporter, was present to witness the side’s inexorable demise only managed to highlight the horrible events being played out on the pitch. It may also be a portent of things to come for the diminutive premier’s Tory party, so there is always a silver lining.

Sunak-sinking feeling

So the relegation was well signaled, the writing was well and truly on the wall, the well had run dry… so much so that the players did not even look that shocked or even upset by their timid exit from the Premier League, at home, to a side that only got promoted from the Championship this season.

It looked like many of the Southampton players had come to terms with their fate long before referee Paul Tierney blew the full-time whistle.

Southampton have generally been well regarded as an organization, business, and for putting out competent and difficult sides to beat for well over a decade now.

So it begs the question, when did it all start to go wrong for this club?

Firstly, Southampton haven’t been helped this season with their management merry-go-round.

After parting company with the once very successful club servant that was Ralph Hasenhuttl, back in November, the club appointed Nathan Jones in an attempt to revive Southampton’s fortunes. However, Jones himself in turn was sacked in February having won just one of his eight league games in charge. Ruben Selles was then appointed the club's interim manager until the end of the season, but it hasn't got any better, with only a solitary win against fellow seemingly doomed Leicester City since the middle of February.

Coming up short

Southampton have not been out of the relegation zone since last November. After playing 26 matches they had 22 points; after 36 matches they have 24, and with their final two fixtures of the season against Brighton and Liverpool, there seems little prospect of them adding to their final total.

The buck may stop at the manager’(s) office but the players should look at their performance too. Only three players  — James Ward-Prowse, Che Adams and Carlos Alcaraz — have scored more than two goals in the league all season.

Eyes will obviously look to the Sport Republic group, who bought the club at the beginning of 2022, with many being critical of scouting and buying of young talent which has dramatically failed to work out this season.

But this style of management has been pretty institutional at the club long before Sport Republic took charge.

The problem with this institutional approach is that when young talent searches don’t work you end up with a survival battle, like this season. When they are successful, it leads to bigger clubs dropping in with offers that can’t be refused for the type of players you need and should keep if you are to build on success.

For Southampton, no sooner have they a winning formation then they have it sold again and the search for the next young star starts all over.

Mersey beat

There was a running joke for many seasons that Liverpool’s scouting division was known as St Mary’s on the Mersey, such were the numbers of summer acquisitions made from the best of what was on offer at Southampton. It can even be argued that Liverpool would not have won their league title without the assistance of a significant portion of Southampton talent.

Liverpool alone, saw their ranks filled out in recent years by the likes of Rickie Lambert, Nathaniel Clyne, Dejan Lovren, Danny Ings, Adam Lallana, and probably most importantly, Virgil van Dijk and Sadio Mane. All from Southampton.

It wasn’t just today or yesterday that Liverpool began their sniffing around Southampton, acquiring Peter Crouch from the south-coast outfit way back in 2005.

Of course, Liverpool were not the only ones going through the Southampton talent bin. Man United bought Luke Shaw and Morgan Schneiderlin between 2014 and 2015. Arsenal shelled out £20m for Calum Chambers, while neighbours Spurs splashed the cash for Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Victor Wanyama.

And it was always thus. Apart from Crouch, it must be remembered that Southampton started the Premier careers of players such as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott, Wayne Bridge, and let’s not forget, one Gareth Bale, among others.

Southampton have done a wonderous job over the years of finding talent, turning them into stars and selling them on as megastars.

It was great while it lasted but was never a format that looked too far to the future. The talent well has run dry and Southampton are now left holding the bucket.