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Another season passes by, with Southampton supporters left wondering just what it is that defines their club.
In four of the past five seasons, Southampton have taken fewer than 45 points. The exception, when they managed the heady heights of 52 points and an 11th-placed finish in 2019-20, now feels an awfully long time ago.
The fear of fans is that Ralph Hasenhuttl is drowning a little in the mediocrity to the point that he is becoming part of it. He is clearly an excellent coach, but is he getting a little weary of this?
None of this should come as much of a surprise. Southampton’s team in 2015-16, the one that finished sixth to mark the high point of the club’s last 35 years, contained future superstars in Virgil van Dijk and Sadio Mane, dependables in Victor Wanyama, Jose Fonte and Ryan Bertrand and exciting young players in James Ward-Prowse and Oriol Romeu.
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Ward-Prowse and Romeu remain as a central midfield partnership, but around them what is left? Kyle Walker-Peters and Tino Livramento are probably the next two best players, but Southampton do not play in a way that makes their full-backs game-changers.
And what do you expect? Every summer Southampton seem to lose a key player (Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Danny Ings in the last two). You cannot keep selling your best players and hope to improve without savvy reinvestment and Southampton have found that increasingly hard. Of the five outfield players recruited last summer, four were aged 24 or under. Keeping one eye on the future is sensible, but it can make the present uncomfortable.
Southampton’s season has been fuelled by two persistent issues. The first, and most obvious, is their ability to hold onto leads. Hasenhuttl’s side have dropped 29 points from winning positions – cut that in half and they would have come close to European qualification. The abject lack of defensive resolve, coupled with an accusation that they sit back and invite teams onto them too readily, has hurt Hasenhuttl’s reputation.
That habit has, in part, been provoked by a dismal season of finishing. Southampton ranked eighth for shots taken in the Premier League this season and eighth for shots on target too. But only two clubs scored with a lower percentage of their shots and only one (Norwich City) with a lower percentage of their shots on target.
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Selling Ings might not have been a problem had Adam Armstrong flourished, Armando Broja continued his early season form or Che Adams chipped in a little more often. Those three have scored 15 goals from a combined 144 shots this season, a rate of 10.4 per cent. By way of comparison, Norwich’s Teemu Pukki’s rate is 16.1 per cent. It isn’t good enough.
To an extent, Hasenhuttl is complicit in that. At times, Southampton’s football has been a little one-paced and lethargic through midfield. Add that to some less than stellar wide attacking options and you have a side that has scored 43 league goals and become overly reliant on Ward-Prowse’s set pieces.
It is a conclusion that has become a theme of these season reviews, but it works here perhaps more than anywhere else: this is a huge summer for Southampton. The takeover in January could have created a spark of excitement that hasn’t happened yet. Dragan Solak, the money man behind new owners Sport Republic, spoke of extensive financial support to allow for “proper planning, management and development of talent”.
Supporters are expecting evidence of that promise over the next three months. Sport Republic are ambitious, aiming to copy the Red Bull model by creating a network of clubs worldwide that share a symbiotic relationship that helps to fuel each other’s success. That’s all very well, but the first club in their portfolio needs some love and attention this summer. With rumours likely to abound about the future of Ward-Prowse, Southampton are in desperate need of a good news story.
Player of the season: James Ward-Prowse
Best signing: Tino Livramento
Breakout star: Tino Livramento
The Score is Daniel Storey’s weekly verdict on all 20 Premier League teams’ performances. Sign up here to receive the newsletter every Monday morning next season
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