Press on 'why we were relegated'...

[benali-shorts]

Bound to be various articles incoming. Here's the Times' take on it, with a couple of interesting snippets on squad disharmony, French-speaking clique; and the general confusion between aspired playing styles and players' ability ably demonstrated (presumably) by Yan Valery being told to hoof it; and the desire to empower the veterans to curb the youngsters' ill-discipline presumably explains  Bednarek's return. I wondered if the source's use of "they" might suggest it's Jones.

 

How arrogance, dithering and flawed policy led to Southampton disaster

Once a model of best practice, the Championship-bound club have fallen apart — and they only have themselves to blame. There was a time not so long ago when Southampton were the envy of both ends of the Premier League, a model of best practice for teams at the bottom, and a shining example of how to scout and sign for those at the top.

It was the days of Mauricio Pochettino and Sadio Mané, of Luke Shaw and Virgil van Dijk, when the club’s “black box” was overflowing with scouting data that nobody else had and their blend of smart recruits and academy graduates was seeing off Inter Milan and winning at Anfield, the Emirates and Old Trafford.

If Southampton fail to win at home to Fulham on Saturday, they will be relegated to the Sky Bet Championship, their fate confirmed mathematically, even if all evidence indicated that the fire in this side burnt out weeks ago. For the Southampton of 2023, read Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion, Fulham even. For these sides now, the red-and-white stripes no longer represent a paragon of excellence but a cautionary tale, a warning for how quickly things can unravel.

Southampton were rarely blown away this season, their demise far from inevitable. For a team that has been bottom of the table since March, they are not last in the Premier League for goals scored or goals conceded, for shots taken or passes made. Their form at St Mary’s has been miserable but away from home, they are only the fifth worst in the division and they have lost by a single goal more than by any other margin. This was a team cut adrift but not out of its depth.

A key problem was the lack of harmony and cohesion, with senior players growing disillusioned with the cliques that had formed in the dressing room. Some saw the divide as generational, the result of a team made up of youngsters and veterans, with little in between. Others believed factions were based more on culture and language, with an African and French-speaking group viewed as particularly removed.

Either way, there was a disconnect between the old guard and the new, about how a Premier League team should operate and the standards that need to be maintained. Poor punctuality was a source of tension, as was a lack of attentiveness in team meetings. Some of the younger players were accused of complacency. They were told they thought they had made it by playing for a Premier League club and were now letting their standards slip.

The decision to target youth and potential, instead of proven performers, had been a conscious one. Rasmus Ankersen and Henrik Kraft, the co-founders of Sport Republic, who acquired a controlling stake in Southampton in January 2022, told staff there was a gap in the market for clubs prepared to take risks on players who others believed were not ready. It was a sporting strategy with financial motivation. Youngsters would flourish and mature. They would benefit the team before being sold at a profit further down the line.

Southampton took that policy, adopted by many middling European clubs, to its absolute extreme. Instead of cosseting youth with experience, they removed experience and bought even younger. Of the 10 players who arrived last summer, Joe Aribo was the oldest at 25. To some, the splurge on potential was a risk. To others, it smacked of arrogance.

“They thought anything they touched would turn to gold,” says a source close to the dressing room. “They believed they could bring in whoever they wanted and they would be a superstar. You bring in a load of kids who don’t know what the levels are — it doesn’t take a genius to work out it’s going to be a disaster.”

Roméo Lavia was one of the few that delivered and he could be sold for at least £40 million this summer. Relegation will cost Southampton more than double that. Regardless of age, players noted a lack of cohesion between recruitment and coaching departments about which arrivals needed time to adapt. There even appeared to be a lack of knowledge and trust in new signings. One player, who unexpectedly started the first game of the season against Tottenham Hotspur, had been feted for his ability to play out from the back, but after repeatedly being caught in possession, he was told at half-time to go long.

A lack of leadership made it harder for players to gel and settle. Fraser Forster, Shane Long and Nathan Redmond left on free transfers last summer, a year after Danny Ings was sold to Aston Villa and Ryan Bertrand joined Leicester City. The year before that, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg went to Tottenham. The steady exodus of personality and experience left a vacuum that needed filling last summer. Instead, Southampton doubled down. They let Oriol Romeu, another highly respected figure, join Girona on the final day of the transfer window.

By the time Romeu left, the grumbling about Ralph Hasenhüttl was getting louder again. Some players had made it clear to the board they wanted Hasenhüttl gone at the end of last season, but three members of his coaching team were dismissed instead, which failed to have the desired impact. Rubén Sellés, who came in as an assistant, led the first two weeks of pre-season training and the atmosphere improved under the Spaniard. Yet the appreciation for Sellés only magnified the disappointment when Hasenhüttl returned and within three months, the Austrian was sacked.

The biggest failing was in the timing. Hasenhüttl had done good work at Southampton during his four years in charge, but if he had left in the summer, a replacement would have had space to implement his ideas. Roberto De Zerbi, who was available after leaving Shakhtar Donetsk, was among those discussed. The World Cup offered the board an excuse to delay, with the mid-season break seen as a useful juncture when they could look again at Hasenhüttl’s position. It was an excuse to dither when decisive action was needed

By the time, Hasenhüttl was sacked in November, De Zerbi had been snapped up by Brighton and Southampton lurched to Luton Town’s Nathan Jones, whose direct style of play and confrontational personality was an awkward fit for a young squad, honed in the ways of pressing. His lack of pedigree raised doubts too. If the board were guilty of arrogance when signing a slew of unproven youngsters, here they were putting a relegation-threatened side in the hands of an unproven coach. Jones tried to enhance the authority of the veterans, but there were not many to lean on. This was not a squad designed for a manager who believes in the importance of experience.For all his antics in public, Jones was not unpopular with the players. There was a belief he could have been successful if he had been given a summer to bed in, an extended period to implement his approach. The failing was in the timing and so it proved again with Sellés, who could have offered a smoother transition after Hasenhüttl. Sellés’s interest in the academy, his eye for detail, and his desire to make changes for the long term all pointed to a coach suited for building, not fire fighting. There were signs of improvement, but all too little, too late.Every step of the way, Southampton were a step behind; in their dithering over Hasenhüttl, in hiring a coach like Jones mid-season, and in turning back to Sellés, when the link was broken and the team was dead on its feet. Another squad, with a different dynamic, might have muddled through, but for this youthful team, shorn of its leaders and experience, and lacking good discipline and a hardened culture, instability proved a disaster. Southampton were so fixated on the next, they forgot about the now. On Saturday, it catches up with them.

[Saint_clark]

Interesting anecdote about Bazunu in the Spurs game. Guess we really signed him based purely on Joe Shields recommendation. That guy needs investigating for the way he came here, spent a load of money buying players from his former employer and then fucked off somewhere else. 

[Saint Gifford]

F?&k me, reading that reminds me of a passage in Tiss’s book about Rupert going down the route of youth. 
 

Look were that got us last time, exactly where we are going now. 
 

Im not a football mastermind, but have seen enough at Grass roots, Academy non league mens, league mens too understand if we are indeed going down this route Yeo- vile here we come. 

[saint1977]

That article is spot on from what we’ve witnessed. The concerning thing is that the club is potentially in a very strong position to bounce back with an experienced manager at the helm - Benitez say to get back up and stay up first season back - but Wilcox is already speaking SR bullshit and seemingly wanting a 25 year old who has experience of playing Football Manager. I exaggerate for comedy value but you do need some depth football experience in the blend. 

This season should be a sobering lesson for the club hierarchy but I don’t get any sense it will be. 

It also settles once and for all any arguments which a small number of dickheads were making on here on about it being the fans fault for wanting Ralph gone etc. It was clear from the walking around, non-contact/nom-effort and shambolic performances Villa away onwards last March that Ralph had lost the dressing room. Replacing him with Jones was the crazy bit. 

As Saint Gifford says above, we had the same nonsense on a far smaller budget under Lowe et al, a demise which also stemmed from arrogance. Perhaps to really learn it’s lessons the club needs to be relegated further down the pyramid than it was in 2005 and 2009 to rid the boardroom forever of the arrogance which the club has a legacy of, and get the hunger back for continuous improvement? I hope it doesn’t but as a support base we have to find of challenging these people more proactively and effectively until they respect the club heritage and the wider fanbase eg ticketing issues, £99 seats, away fans everywhere, Block 1 debacle. It’s the football, stupid. 

I’ve stopped going to home games and it’d not be a surprise to see less than 20k Saints fans actually in the ground today to send a clear, unignorable message. Leave the Liverpool game for the day trippers and true fans boycott. 

The club has the power to change all of the above, get some football experience in to challenge the bullshit and re-engage the fanbase, getting the product on the pitch right.

Edited 13 May, 2023 by saint1977

[FarehamSaintJames]

24 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

Interesting anecdote about Bazunu in the Spurs game. Guess we really signed him based purely on Joe Shields recommendation. That guy needs investigating for the way he came here, spent a load of money buying players from his former employer and then fucked off somewhere else. 

Agreed. He’s an absolute fraud.

He strikes me as someone that spends his day gaming and just by sheer luck has farted his way through the ranks, and when left to do it on his own - hasn’t.

Ankersen gets a hard time, and rightly so, but Joe Shield is just as culpable for this season.

[trousers]

The first thought that occurred to me when reading that article (and Lord D will want to kiss me on my buttocks for saying this) is how weak JWP must be as a captain. Yes, I know it's ultimately the manager's job to engender unity and team spirit in the dressing room but it's also a key off-the-field role for the club captain too. 

Ankersen needs to go and take his ill-fated experiment with him otherwise we're heading for back-to-back relegations. #rootcause

 

Edited 13 May, 2023 by trousers

[S-Clarke]

Great article, cannot disagree with any of that. It's exactly how it's played out in front of our eyes.

I guess it's hard for us to see what goes on behind the scenes, but it's entirely possible that some of these young players we've bought are big billy bollocks and don't have the commitment the likes of Romeu and co had - so that has had a knock on to morale. Football isn't all about talent at the end of the day, and young players (As we have seen with our Jimmy-Jay Morgan) do have a tendency to think they've made it, when they haven't. They've not really had anyone to bring them down a peg or two either, as the guy next to them in the dressing room is another kid.

Agreed that it doesn't show JWP in a great light as the captain of this joint. I've always admired his loyalty and he cares but as a captain I think he's pretty shit.

Edited 13 May, 2023 by S-Clarke

[Ted Bates Statue]

The De Zerbi bit feels much like someone trying to cover for themselves, a bit like when Les Reed would get his mate Jeremy in the Telegraph to put out a friendly article to control the narrative. Easy to say "oh, we almost got it spot on." I never heard of him until he pitched up at Brighton, and i don't believe for a second he was on our radar. 

On the other hand, there were rumours swirling about interest in Nathan Jones for a while before Hasenhuttl got sacked. We got the man we wanted all along, simple as.

[aintforever]

That article is spot on. It’s very similar to last time we went down with arrogance at the top being the main the reason.

[trousers]

13 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Agreed that it doesn't show JWP in a great light as the captain of this joint. I've always admired his loyalty and he cares but as a captain I think he's pretty shit.

This has got me thinking (dangerous I know) but didn't Kelvin Davis fulfill a 'player liaison' role at the club after he retired as a player and before he became part of the coaching team? In other words, he acted as a middle-man between the players and manager and could therefore nip any changing room unrest in the bud before it became problematic....? Maybe we've missed someone in that kind of role given the player cliques 'revelations' in that article?

Edited 13 May, 2023 by trousers

[The Curse of St Mary's]

Jones had 5-6 weeks to get his ideas and identity across which would have been no different had he got appointed back in the summer. He just didn't have the pedigree or PL experience to get a tune out of these players. 

[S-Clarke]

7 minutes ago, trousers said:

This has got me thinking (dangerous I know) but didn't Kelvin Davis fulfill a 'player liaison' role at the club after he retired as a player and before he became part of the coaching team? In other words, he acted as a middle-man between the players and manager and could therefore nip any changing room unrest in the bud before it became problematic....? Maybe we've missed someone in that kind of role given the player cliques 'revelations' in that article?

Very good point and something which has crossed my mind as well. I don't particularly think he was worth much as a coach, but I think we underestimated what he brought to the squad and the changing room vibe. 

Kelvin handled all the fines for lateness etc up until he left, so I don't know who took that on.

[Crab Lungs]

Do not clap this shiseters today. Disgusting arrogance.

[Bushey Saint]

35 minutes ago, trousers said:

The first thought that occurred to me when reading that article (and Lord D will want to kiss me on my buttocks for saying this) is how weak JWP must be as a captain. Yes, I know it's ultimately the manager's job to engender unity and team spirit in the dressing room but it's also a key off-the-field role for the club captain too. 

Ankersen needs to go and take his ill-fated experiment with him otherwise we're heading for back-to-back relegations. #rootcause

 

Grieves me to say it because I like him as a player, but I think you've hit the nail on its head there.  JWP and leadership should never be used in the same sentence unless the intervening words are 'has no', and leadership is followed by 'skills'.

[goneawol]

The ‘insane’ decisions that led Southampton to Premier League relegation (telegraph.co.uk)

[Charlie Mealings]

I've found it difficult to pick a reason how we got to this place. So I wrote about all of them, every opportunity we had to get off the 'Pompey Highway' since Ings left.

Some exits were huge, others trivial. Was funny, sad and long to write. Hope it helps:

https://www.statemarys.com/p/11-exits-on-the-pompey-highway

[Daft Kerplunk]

35 minutes ago, goneawol said:

The ‘insane’ decisions that led Southampton to Premier League relegation (telegraph.co.uk)

And now, we finally read what had been alluded to for awhile. We are not a well run club, and we have been relegated as a result of it. The momentum has been poor for years and there’s every chance we will be down for a good while yet. I’d like to avoid the Liverpool match but I have a feeling that might be our last premier league game for a good few years. We deserve relegation as a club. And as a fan base who unquestioningly accept the bullshit of sheisters like Semmens and Ankerson, we probably deserve it to. 

[angelman]

Opinions.... Just my tuppence worth. 

 

The press never really look into the real problem and where it all started. And to me, that was with the passing of Marcus Liebherr. Oh some of the fans go on and on about his legacy. His legacy was not to Southampton FC and its fans. He was here for little over a year. His legacy was to his daughter, and boy didn't she do well out of us. Out of interest, has she made some hollow platitudes about relegation? 

 

She's not stupid, and she nurtured the investment to get it into the Premier League where it was then much more valuable to sell. Fortune shined down on in that the team promoted was competitive to a certain degree. But it became very clear that it had to be self funding. No outward investment in the squad. Sell to buy. Monies loaned to the club at a decent interest rate. Cortese ran a tight ship but seemingly had different ideas and was given the chop for wanting to spend her money. Koeman did a stella job getting a squad together - I'm sure his name helped, so that was a masterstroke appointing him, or getting him to come. 

 

All the pundits said selling our best players would lead to relegation. Hindsight is obviously a great thing, but ultimately they were right, even though it took a few years more than they thought, and TBH needn't have had to be the case. Let's just ignore Gao's ownership!! More of the same - sell to buy, but by this stage the cupboard was a bit bare! Which comes on to the current lot. The idea of putting a team together with little experience and without some who can score goals wasn't a great decision, but it is what it is. 2 disastrous managerial appointment leading to 3W-3D-16L, when there was more than enough time to turn things around.

 

And that's it IMO. A bit of a double edged sword - ML buys us out of administration as we were a very good business opportunity as shown by the £200m KL walked away with. We were a good business opportunity and it was taken full advantage of by people who didn't share the same interests and goals

[obelisk]

I'm sure there'll be plenty of similar press articles. Here's another one.

Guardian/Observer

[Dell McDellFace]

If we're indulging in post-mortems:

Rasmus: Is the ChatGPT of football directors. In fact even ChatGPT would realize that you can't run a football club like other commercial businesses. It would also know that doing everything in a data driven way is madness (even though AI is data driven!!)

Managers:

Ralph had become a one-trick pony and his tactics were well-known and easy to counter. Teams learned to sit back let us do the high energy push until we couldn't keep it up any longer and then hit us when we tired. Evidenced by the number of times we were in the lead and lost, our dire 2nd half performances and the fact that our best results came against top teams who would play to their own strengths rather than hit our weakness.

The appointment of mad Nate hit the club in more ways than on the field - we became reputationally damaged for such a stupid and self-harming appointment.

I was going to call Selles "Ralph 2.0" but it's more accurate to say "Ralph 0.5". Again, harmful stupidity making the appointment semi-permanent on the basis of one good result.

Players: Not going to name individuals, but in general terms:

We recruited some promising youngsters but expected them to hit the ground running rather than be nurtured and blended slowly.

The older guard players are mostly limited in some ways, but would have been good enough if they had been playing in a cohesive unit, but they never were.

I don't think their body language was indicative of not caring or having given up. Their confidence was blown apart by having to play out of position or in a team where nobody was sure who was supposed to be doing what.

It wasn't as simple as not having a goal scorer, we didn't create enough goal scoring opportunities and were naïve and lacking concentration across the back line.

The first task for the (hopefully) new manager is to restore confidence in the broken players that remain.

Post mortem conclusion: Death by mis-management on every level

[Window Cleaner]

At the end of the day it's really rather simple.

We spent what about 140 million on players who don't have (as of yet) the aptitude for the PL. We tarted about by sacking a manager who was getting the job done and appointed two others who clearly weren't up to the job. We got relegated which is exactly what we desreved for all of that.

I mean Suleymana and Tall Paul for 40 million of so, we could have got a really decent player for that. What you want when you're spending those sort of sums is end product and those two didn't provide any of that. 

[Kenilworthy]

1 hour ago, Window Cleaner said:

At the end of the day it's really rather simple.

We spent what about 140 million on players who don't have (as of yet) the aptitude for the PL. We tarted about by sacking a manager who was getting the job done and appointed two others who clearly weren't up to the job. We got relegated which is exactly what we desreved for all of that.

I mean Suleymana and Tall Paul for 40 million of so, we could have got a really decent player for that. What you want when you're spending those sort of sums is end product and those two didn't provide any of that. 

When Ralph was sacked we had 12 points from 15 games. That would be 30 points and relegation over the season. That form came on the back of 1 win from the last 12 games of the previous season. To say he was getting the job done is rather generous. The massive mistake we made was going into this season with him still in charge.

[saint1977]

1 hour ago, Window Cleaner said:

At the end of the day it's really rather simple.

We spent what about 140 million on players who don't have (as of yet) the aptitude for the PL. We tarted about by sacking a manager who was getting the job done and appointed two others who clearly weren't up to the job. We got relegated which is exactly what we desreved for all of that.

I mean Suleymana and Tall Paul for 40 million of so, we could have got a really decent player for that. What you want when you're spending those sort of sums is end product and those two didn't provide any of that. 

I’ll go further - add in the £20m for Carrillo, and £18m for Ely in 2018 and that’s another genuine quality player signed instead for £25-40m who scores/makes/stops goals and adds momentum, and prize money. We’ve had to suffer Ely this season so relevant to today. Meant players are being paid off rather than turning profits as the club was before 2016. £80m in total wasted, and jury still out on likes of Mara and Bazanu clearly nowhere PL level for foreseeable. Boufal left on a free, another £16m. This policy of not really spending over £20m has meant a bloated squad of so-so players. 

[Rebel]

No identity, no intensity: How Southampton were relegated from the Premier League

Relegation to the Championship means a reset in approach after seasons of poor transfer work

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/southampton-relegated-premier-league-ruben-selles-b2338324.html

[Tamesaint]

2 hours ago, Rebel said:

No identity, no intensity: How Southampton were relegated from the Premier League

Relegation to the Championship means a reset in approach after seasons of poor transfer work

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/southampton-relegated-premier-league-ruben-selles-b2338324.html

A good article.

[John B]

Although I agree with much said on this thread the main reason we have been relegated is that the squad we have is pretty poor and the results have proved that fact.

 

The PL is so competitive,clubs like Everton Leeds and Leicester with better overall records better than us in the mix with us to be in the Championship next season.

 

Most teams have large squads with many players opting to go to these clubs where they are unlikely to play regularly.

 

Consequently there are just not that many decent players who want to play for SFC  like there were when squad sizes were smaller and we pay over the odds for players with no real ability to perform in the PL.

 

Our recruitment has been dreadful over the last few seasons with only KWP being a significant addition to the squad like Window Cleaner says  Suleymana and Tall Paul for 40 million or so is plain stupid.

 

We have needed better strikers for sometime now but where they will materialise from is anybody's guess .

 

Football is very much a team game and the plan to sign a dozen or so players was bound to fail .

 

The ones we brought in in the last few windows were not good enough either  so I just feel this relegation was inevitable and a return to the PL may take sometime

[Ex Lion Tamer]

On 13/05/2023 at 12:16, trousers said:

The first thought that occurred to me when reading that article (and Lord D will want to kiss me on my buttocks for saying this) is how weak JWP must be as a captain. Yes, I know it's ultimately the manager's job to engender unity and team spirit in the dressing room but it's also a key off-the-field role for the club captain too. 

Ankersen needs to go and take his ill-fated experiment with him otherwise we're heading for back-to-back relegations. #rootcause

 

I really don't think there's anything the captain can do if the manager isn't putting in place a strict framework of fines and punishments

[Crab Lungs]

13 hours ago, Tamesaint said:

A good article.

Good to see an article also calling out the awful recruitment for the past few seasons. That room of nerds are a joke.

[Rebel]

Southampton need more than a thousand bad ideas after their whimper-less relegation -  https://www.football365.com/news/opinion-southampton-need-a-complete-reset-but-can-sport-republic-deliver-ward-prowse

[31cc]

On the bright side, David Squires gives us a good send-off in the Grauniad

David Squires on … the travails of Arsenal, Southampton and Jordan Pickford | Football | The Guardian

 

 

[Sunglasses Ron]

On 15/05/2023 at 17:16, Rebel said:

No identity, no intensity: How Southampton were relegated from the Premier League

Relegation to the Championship means a reset in approach after seasons of poor transfer work

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/southampton-relegated-premier-league-ruben-selles-b2338324.html

Really good article, but man alive, what a depressing read that is.

It all seems so simple when laid out like that really.

[Doctoroncall]

2 hours ago, Sunglasses Ron said:

Really good article, but man alive, what a depressing read that is.

It all seems so simple when laid out like that really.

It doesn’t even touch on the internal state of affairs with cliques and dropping standards. 
 

I do wonder if Rasmus is somehow on the spectrum - he doesn’t see or require emotional connection, social aspects. Which are just as important as technical elements. Otherwise he’s a one trick pony and is not as smart as he thinks he is.
 

The chase with Jones was so far off from what was required. As the reporter put it ‘lacking the temperament, persona or credibility’ which isn’t a typical data point!

[Sunglasses Ron]

2 hours ago, Doctoroncall said:

It doesn’t even touch on the internal state of affairs with cliques and dropping standards. 
 

I do wonder if Rasmus is somehow on the spectrum - he doesn’t see or require emotional connection, social aspects. Which are just as important as technical elements. Otherwise he’s a one trick pony and is not as smart as he thinks he is.
 

The chase with Jones was so far off from what was required. As the reporter put it ‘lacking the temperament, persona or credibility’ which isn’t a typical data point!

All the more reason for collective, cogent, decision making by a suitable senior team!

Edited 17 May, 2023 by Sunglasses Ron