Southampton Are on the Brink of Relegation From the Premier League After an Eleven-Year Stay in the Division, but Where Did It Go Wrong for the Saints?

Once the blueprint for building dazzling reputations of their academy graduates, Southampton have flirted with the prospect of vanishing from English football’s elite league in recent years. The club were once in a position of sustainability with a platform for future success as the likes of Adam Lallana, Ricky Lambert and Sadio Mane were sold to Premier League giants Liverpool for a king’s ransom. Just eight years prior to that, Theo Walcott was moved on to Arsenal for a total of £12m and Gareth Bale left the south-coast for Tottenham Hotspur for £5m just a year later.

Since then, the club have operated reasonably well with results superseding expectations, such as a League Cup final appearance in 2017 and a solid period exceeding a decade amongst the elite in the Premier League. During the summer of 2016, the club sold £123m worth of players and turned a tidy profit of just over £27m. Just eighteen months later, Liverpool came back in for another Saints player in Dutch centre-half Virgil van Dijk and the club sold the player for £75m, a British record transfer fee for a defender at the time.

Such an impressive recruitment model had dissipated over the last few years, with fellow south coast club Brighton seemingly taking their place as the best in the business. Southampton have performed remarkably well in the Premier League since their promotion in 2012 but a consistent trend of bringing the wrong individuals at the wrong time to the football club has finally caught up with them, with the club now rock-bottom of the table with three games to go.

The Saints started the 2022/2023 season with lots of negative noise surrounding the club. Ralph Hasenhuttl’s position was being talked about in the media as if it was untenable and the feeling amongst the fans was that he might walk away sooner rather than later. Compounded by a 4-1 defeat at Spurs on the opening day, many predicted that this would be the club’s final season in the top flight, which has ultimately turned out to be true. However, four points from their next two granted Hasenhuttl with time, and the fanbase looked on with hope as they beat a Chelsea side shot of confidence at the end of August.