There was a time early in the season when you wondered if Southampton actually had the ability to be a decent team, capable of putting up a fight if they were willing to be a little more pragmatic in the Premier League.
Leeds United, Leicester City and Burnley have all underperformed over the past two seasons, partly because they failed to realize too late that trying to out-football their opponents was more likely to get them into trouble than Not to cause trouble to the opponent.
Russell Martin was stubborn, but things weren’t getting any better. They led 2-1 against Liverpool only to lose due to a self-destruction, and were beaten 5-1 by Chelsea in their last Premier League game at St Mary’s Stadium .
This game against Tottenham Hotspur was the worst: a complete disgrace from the first minute. No team should be conceding as many goals in 45 minutes as they were in mid-December.
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Tottenham taking three points was not a surprise in itself, nor an indictment in particular, but Southampton’s pitiable manner did not come as a surprise to them as they would have admitted if Spurs had been under Ange Postkoglu’s leadership. No matter what happens next, they are a great offense and will get better.
When you concede the ball without touching it, you can’t blame it on recklessness. You can’t make any excuses or suggest any adjustments when you then stand aside and let your opponent breeze past you and score three more goals with 25 minutes left.
Southampton are simply a terrible team in a division with no room for them. The visitors were tied at five-nil at half-time; it didn’t really do Southampton and Martin any good and things didn’t get any worse after Spurs took their foot firmly off the pedal. Even they don’t have any risk of letting it slip from there.
The huge gap between the Premier League and Championship is a real problem, but at least struggling Ipswich have put up a fight and look to be rising to the challenge. Both they and newly promoted Leicester City have more than twice as many points as Southampton. One cannot live by Tyler Dieblin alone.
At current returns, Southampton would need to play until around October next year to escape the relegation zone, and that’s assuming the rest of the table is frozen. Call us cynical, but we think they possible There’s trouble.
The stupidest thing is that Southampton had warning signs on their way to promotion last season. Poor Huddersfield, facing relegation under caretaker management, visited St Mary’s in February and unexpectedly arrived at Southampton with attacking vigor.
Huddersfield’s efforts were in vain and they lost 5-3, but they taught the better teams in the division a lesson in beating Martin’s side: don’t be afraid of them, just work hard. Southampton lost seven of their remaining 16 games and advanced to the play-offs largely because their opponents treated them with so much respect.
You’d think Southampton might have learned their lesson and looked to shore up the situation with a raft of summer signings, knowing their top-flight rivals would be more willing to go on the attack than their Championship rivals.
On the contrary, their defense and midfield performance are basically the same as before, but they have been upgraded due to too many permanent loans, with only 20-year-old Mateusz Fernandez and 36-year-old Mateusz Fernandez in the starting lineup. of players were minimally supplemented. Adam Lallana. Through their recruitment, their approach and their insistence on Martin, Southampton have done themselves absolutely no favors at any step
Southampton find themselves in such a seemingly irredeemable position that their wisest course of action now is to start preparing for another promotion from the Championship next season, and if you were any other club recruiting for the job, you’d probably be looking to Martin himself asked for help. What a silly, impossible corner for a club to corner.
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