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Picture the scene. Southampton have enjoyed their best English top-flight year to date. They have produced an English core for the national team, with Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Luke Shaw selected to represent England at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Mauricio Pochettino is lauded for his ingenuity at St Mary’s and for instilling unerring faith in young English talent. There are more in the pipeline, too. The likes of Calum Chambers, James Ward Prowse and Nathaniel Clyne offer much promise. After years of incertitude, Southampton, finally, are establishing themselves as a Premier League force to be reckoned with.
And then it capitulates – a scene of devastation even Anthony Horowitz could not have written.
A mass exodus
Luke Shaw set off the trail, moving to Manchester United in approximately a £30 million deal. Pochettino was appointed Tottenham Hotspur manager and it seemed Morgan Schneiderlin could follow the Argentine to White Hart Lane. Adam Lallana replicated the full-back in sampling greater challenges, achieving his dream of UEFA Champions League football by signing for Liverpool in an agreement worth £23 million.
Dejan Lovren, their Croatian defensive stalwart, departed, heading for Liverpool for £20 million, linking up with Rickie Lambert who had arrived at Anfield earlier. And then, if proceedings could hardly worsen from Southampton’s seemingly doomed perspective, came the stinging, killer blow. Chambers, the latest graduate from their acclaimed academy, who seemed primed to be nurtured into a world-class talent at St Mary’s’, left for Arsenal. That must have hurt.
The Saints go marching in? The Saints go marching out, they dubbed it. Some of the game’s leading figures and pundits tipped Southampton for the ignominy of relegation. Some waded into the debate offering their own unequivocal view, suggesting prudely the club’s identity had been violently obliterated. Others directed harrowing blame at Ralph Krueger, the club’s chairman, claiming the Canadian born German’s poor leadership was culpable for the mass exodus at St Mary’s.
What a difference a month or two can make.
Shrewd summer business
Perhaps, Ronald Koeman and Krueger are due an apology. All it may have took for the remnants of Southampton’s incredible sales to be discarded and the era of Pochettino brushed away as history was an attentive glance at the scoreboard on Saturday afternoon. “Southampton 8 - Sunderland 0,” it beamed, much to the jubilation of a full house at St Mary’s.
This was very much Koeman’s team ripping Sunderland mercilessly to unrecognisable shreds with the verve and style worshipped by the Southampton faithful. Sunderland were woeful, hapless and disgraceful, but Southampton, and Koeman in particular, deserve credit.
It was only two months ago when leading football figures and pundits touted Southampton as a relegation candidate. Koeman, installed in times of great adversity at the club, invested shrewdly in the summer, putting the profits obtained from the mass departures into sagacious use. Graziano Pelle, who scored two on Saturday, seems more than a sagacious purchase at the relatively low cost of £8 million.
The Italy international, who registered his first international goal in Italy’s European Championships 2016 qualifier against Malta during the international break, has ably filled the void left by Lambert’s departure, a combination of strength, technique and footballing intelligence and the worthy recipient of the Premier League’s October Player of the Month accolade.
Behind him operates Dusan Tadic, another summer import from the Dutch Eredivisie. The left-footed Serb has settled seamlessly into the Premier League with seven assists and a solitary goal in eight appearances. He very much tore Sunderland’s meek resistance apart, offering hazardous width and combining to lethal effect with the buccaneering Ryan Bertrand in the left channel. There was a touch of David Silva in Tadic’s control, technique and outstanding vision.
Koeman substantially reinforced his squad, adding depth and options to an already formidable squad. Victor Wanyama and Sadio Mane both disembarked from the substitutes bench to register Southampton’s seventh and eighth in an astonishing rout.
It is also encouraging that, despite the departures of a plethora of English talent and Pochettino, Koeman is embracing Southampton’s academy production line and the club’s tradition of producing admirable talent, with youth development prized in his native Netherlands. The Dutchman is prepared to provide a platform to Southampton’s next generation to shine, with 19 year-old starlet Harrison Reed named as a substitute on Saturday.
Southampton may currently occupy third spot in the Premier League table but Koeman knows tougher tests await. But for now, the Dutchman, the Premier League’s October Manager of the Month, remains focused on continuing to defy their early-season sceptics.
