Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. This is club 76/92. The best way to follow his journey and read all of the previous pieces is by subscribing here
“How s*** must you be, we’re winning at home.”
Football supporters are loyal to a fault, but dark humour is their vice during periods of strife. They will continue to turn up in their thousands, not because they believe that the collection of incompetents in front of them will suddenly turn things around, but because the worst times tend to provoke a grim determination to keep on singing.
This has either been the worst season in Southampton’s modern history or their worst season for two years; supporters can have no fun at all arguing on that point.
Yet here they are: crowing to a set of Crystal Palace supporters who have just seen their side get to Wembley and are the form team in the country. That’s the good stuff right there.
By the standard of the last eight months, Southampton have played well for most of this match. They survive early pressure and seem to grow into the contest, creating the odd chance even before Paul Onuachu’s headed goal.
There is a surge of energy within St Mary’s, as if thousands of people have kept their compliments in their pockets for precisely this time. Very few supporters actually like groaning and booing.
Mateus Fernandes is finding space as a roaming No 10. Jack Stephens, the captain who received boos when his name was read out before kick off, looks perfectly solid.
Aaron Ramsdale makes a majestic one-handed save. Eberechi Eze wastes two chances – a shot and a cross – and the home supporters jeer with glee. Maybe, for once, things might be ok.
And then Crystal Palace equalise a minute into second-half stoppage time. Southampton supporters barely even miss a beat: “How s*** must you be, we’re drawing at home.”
Forty minutes before kick-off at St Mary’s, there is an emphatic mood of “Oh god not another home game”. It’s pure conjecture on my part, but even the brass band that circles the front of the stadium playing “Oh when the Saints go marching in” seem to have a little less chirpiness.
Southampton have lost their last nine league games here, conceding 31 goals in the process. More limping than marching.
In the media room, two elder statesmen are putting the club to rights. Southampton need to get it forward, to occasionally give an opponent a kick, to be ugly to opponents. At first it sounds like the slightly outdated cliches you hear in similar circumstances up and down the country.
Southampton 1-1 Crystal Palace (Wednesday 2 April)
- Game no.: 82/92
- Miles: 320
- Cumulative miles: 15,788
- Total goals seen: 213
- The one thing I’ll remember in May: The instant shift from “How s***t must you be, we’re winning at home” to “drawing”
After a couple of minutes of this, I suddenly think: every word of what they are saying is right. The last eight months, the grim marathon, has all happened too easily.
How long has relegation been certain for? Southampton took one point from their first nine matches and that felt terminal. Even if not mathematically confirmed, that despondency was entirely valid because everybody here had watched this show before.
In 2022-23, Southampton sacked their manager before Christmas, appointed a replacement who also left before the end of the season and finished bottom. Play it on repeat in 2024-25.
Southampton were once the poster boys for overachievement, the forerunners of a strategy that Brentford and Brighton adapted with the aid of enlarged scouting networks.
They bought sensibly, developed their own and sold when the price was right: Virgil van Dijk, Luke Shaw, Sadio Mane, Calum Chambers, Morgan Schneiderlin, Nathaniel Clyne, Adam Lallana.
At the same time, Southampton finished in the Premier League’s top eight four seasons in a row. They seemed to have the cheat codes that made them the envy of those below them.
That had all stopped working (or at least working as well) some time before Sport Republic’s takeover in January 2022. After Van Dijk in January 2018, Southampton didn’t sell a player for more than £15m until Danny Ings in 2021.
Their annual sale of key assets built up room that allowed them to reinvest, but that was done in scattergun fashion. Southampton finished 17th, 16th, 11th and 15th in the four seasons before Sport Republic.
Over time, experienced, dependable players were replaced by Premier League gambles: Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg out, Ibrahima Diallo in; Danny Ings out, Adam Armstrong in; Jannik Vestegaard out, Romain Perraud and Mohammed Salisu in. Sport Republic were handed the task of addressing what had creaked to a halt, including the messy recruitment.
If that presented summer 2022, the first full transfer window under new ownership, as the most pivotal in Southampton’s medium-term future, what you see now are its results. Oriol Romeu was sold to Girona for a cut-price fee and the club’s new owners embarked upon the biggest spending spree in the club’s history.
Although Romeo Lavia provided value for money through his eventual sale price, and Armel Bella-Kotchap evidently had talent, Southampton also signed Gavin Bazunu, Sekou Mara, Duje-Caleta Car, Sam Edozie, Joe Aribo and Juan Larios for around £50m.
With the season starting badly and Ralph Hasenhuttl losing his job, Sport Republic attempted to make amends in January. Another £55m was spent on Kamaldeep Sulemana, Paul Onuachu, Carlos Alcaraz and Mislav Orsic.
Nobody could claim that Sport Republic weren’t investing in their new club. But a club that had succeeded by moving on individual assets of high value and spending the proceeds carefully became a collector of quantity over quality. It left them with a bloated squad and a first Championship season in 12 years.
Enter Russell Martin. Reinventing the style of Southampton’s football and shifting the mood over the course of a single summer was a significant achievement. Getting the club up, including a meticulously managed playoff campaign, was a mighty effort.
But there were signs even in the second tier that Martin’s football might come unstuck against higher-class opponents: 0-5 and 1-4 vs Leicester, 0-1 and 2-3 vs Ipswich, 0-5 vs Sunderland.
The country had seen Burnley struggle after winning the Championship title through their intent to play out from the back and Burnley had invested heavily following promotion.
If Southampton were to survive with Martin’s football, they needed to go back to what had worked before: key arrivals in key positions to create a spine of Premier League quality. And they had to do so without their sporting director Jason Wilcox, who had left for Manchester United shortly before promotion.
Southampton did try to get it right. There was concrete reported interest in Fabio Carvalho, Liam Delap, Jack Clarke, Matt O’Riley and Max Aarons. The arrival of Aaron Ramsdale from Arsenal was a coup; he has been amongst the club’s best players this season (amid amid little competition).
But when that didn’t come off, Southampton seemed to sign players because they had to, not because any of it made huge sense. Twelve new players arrived, but three of those were previous Championship loanees. Che Adams left and Cameron Archer came in – was that an upgrade? The experienced Stuart Armstrong left and Ben Brereton Diaz came in – that definitely wasn’t.
At the start of the season, Southampton’s starting XI looked no better than the playoff final winners and they were being asked to play the same way against far better opponents.
Even then, supporters feared the worst. Their team underperformed even those lowest expectations. Southampton may yet avoid Derby County’s points record, but they have suffered the earliest relegation in Premier League history.
The departure of Ivan Juric as manager this week – who wholly failed to turn around a desperate situation – has led to some suggestion that Martin was unfortunate to lose his job.
But at the time of his sacking, Southampton had taken five points from 16 matches and had just been 5-0 down at home to Tottenham with an entire stadium intimating that the manager didn’t know what he was doing. Juric actually leaves Southampton with a better points per Premier League game record than Martin.
The pain of 2024-25 can be broken down into two key elements. It starts with a chronic lack of goalscoring prowess that was only partially aided by the midseason introduction of Tyler Dibling as a creative force.
Southampton scored more than once in three of their first 23 league games this season and they lost all three of those matches anyway. They rank 19th for shots, 18th for shot accuracy and 20th for converting shots into goals.
But the defining image was of Southampton defenders inviting pressure through an attacking press and then wholly failing to resist that pressure, turning the ball over and conceding within five or so seconds.
They have made the most mistakes leading to a shot in the league this season and it’s not even close. They have conceded seven more goals than any other team, on course to reach 91 in the season as a whole.
And so this goes beyond two managers, even if neither can argue that it wasn’t right for them to leave their positions. Southampton used to be a club that got things right, that gave itself the best chance of punching above its weight.
That reputation had dwindled badly for too long. This season, from the first home game onwards it became clear that it was dead.
After Southampton’s relegation was confirmed, and Juric was sacked, the club’s statement made the point of thanking their supporters for sticking with it this season. There was at least no attempt to sugarcoat abject failure, no bluster.
“We remain incredibly grateful for the ongoing support of our fans,” it read.
“Their continued dedication and passion, despite what has been a very tough season, is remarkable and is appreciated by everyone at the club. Despite the challenges that relegation will bring, our goal is to restore a sense of pride for them in their team and club once again.”
That is Southampton’s next challenge. For all the likely talk of new managers, promotion bids, a summer clearout and a shift in transfer policy that focuses on several key players rather than a dozen hopefuls, it is that pride that has been so badly lacking this season.
Supporters can forgive underperformance with fight. They can accept their team losing frequently if they are trying different things to shift the mood. At Southampton, far too little of either during their last two relegations.
It leaves a club forced to the edge of its own sanity by repeated mistakes and a fanbase needing some evidence that those in charge are capable of learning from them.
Daniel Storey has set himself the goal of visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season. You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/bJkniyt
Post a Comment
EmoticonClick to see the code!
To insert emoticon you must added at least one space before the code.