For so long they deceived, casting their doubters aside, misleading everyone into believing they were a genuine top four team ready to take on Europe’s elite.
But just as everybody half knew, almost like the inevitability of Arsenal making their traditional top four surge, Ronald Koeman’s Southampton have finally stalled this season.
The Southampton fairytale-bubble has finally burst, and everybody can now go back to saying what they thought all along. This is not a top four team in disguise, dressed up in red, white and black, providing inspiration to similar-stature clubs, but just an impressively progressive club whose wholesale investments in deep-rooted structural changes have paid overwhelming dividends.
Hence, Southampton have performed badly in recent weeks because that’s a more honest reflection of how good they are. Before last night’s tentative victory over Palace, Koeman’s men had won just once in their last five, which was a one nil win at QPR. Until then, they had failed to score in five consecutive games, and Sadio Mane’s winner ended a prolonged attacking drought.
This is clearly Koeman’s greatest challenge for the time being, because their defensive solidarity remains intact. Graziano Pelle has failed to score since December 20, and is looking like the striker they actually signed. And incidentally, it’s Pelle’s stalling form that actually epitomises a very prominent trend throughout the entire club, which best explains their slight downfall in last month.
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In essence, Southampton built their progression on recycling their squad in a really exceptional manner. That’s why they’ve defied all expectations this year, as the departures of Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw, Rickie Lambert, Dani Osvaldo, Dejan Lovren and Callum Chambers looked sure to see them rooted back to the depths of the table. Losing and replacing as many players as that (not even including manager Mauricio Pochettino), regardless of their quality, looked sure to unnerve and unsettle, just as Spurs were when they brought in whole host of new players after Gareth Bale left.
Those departures have meant nothing because Pelle, as well as Dusan Tadic, Mane, Shane Long and Ryan Bertrand have all slotted in with an assumed ease, masking those frailties sufficiently. The fact of the matter is, Southampton were only able to acquire these players because they weren’t really that good across Europe.
Pelle was a failed Italian striker, scoring a mere 21 goals between 2007-2012. Tadic only broke into (the less competitive) Serbia national team when he was 22 because he wasn’t perceived as an especially good player. Dejan Lovren rarely started for a mediocre Lyon side for two seasons before having his breakthrough debut last season, and looks to be showing his true colours this year at Liverpool.
Perhaps then, in recent weeks the mask has been off. Pelle’s looked more like the mis-guided Parma man who scored once in two seasons. Tadic’s creativity isn’t what most assumed it might be. Their assured defence has remained quite consistent, but their ability to score has certainly faded.
This isn’t the over-riding reason for Southampton’s recent regression, but it’s certainly a factor. If signing replacements from Europe was as simple as they’d made it look from September through December, the Premier League would be a significantly stronger league. Ryan Bertrand, Victor Wanyama and Fraser Forster have all still been inspired signings for the most part, but there needs to be an element of recognition that importing and integrating players from abroad is hardly as straight-forward as it might seem.
For sure though, their Premier league slip has coincided with the second-half-of-season runs that all good teams have. In fact, with Arsenal and Liverpool now making serious headway, Southampton’s consistent form may well have not been enough to get them to the top four anyway.
Still, this season has still be a phenomenal success story for a side tipped by some to get relegated this season, and such should be celebrated, not castigated, in light of what was ultimately a fairly inevitable drop in form.
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