Southampton’s season was 12 minutes old when the campaign began to ebb towards failure.
After taking the lead through James Ward-Prowse on the opening weekend against Tottenham, Southampton slumped to a 4-1 loss. Ralph Hasenhuttl was still at the helm but already cut a defeatist figure, sighing: “It felt a little bit like the opponent switched into the next gear and we cannot follow.”
Spurs were not alone in leaving Southampton in their wake. The Saints had their first Premier League relegation since 2005 confirmed with two games to spare, cut six points adrift of anyone else in the division.
Here are the damning figures behind a relegation that the first of three Southampton managers this season saw coming at the start of August.
Southampton’s new ownership forked out £132m on transfer fees across their first full season since the takeover – marginally less than defending champions Manchester City coughed up and more than Liverpool could afford.
The 14 permanent additions made by the transfer committee boasted exactly zero minutes of Premier League football between them upon arrival.
Arsenal loanee Ainsley Maitland-Niles was the only addition that had ever featured in England’s top flight and even he had gone ten months without a Premier League outing. On numerous occasions, the lack of top-flight savvy was painfully apparent, especially at the sharp end of the pitch.
By the winter break, Southampton had already sacked Hasenhuttl and sat second-bottom. The Saints squad amassed just 270 World Cup minutes between them – the fewest of any team in the division – but their club fortunes only got worse after returning from Qatar.
Ward-Prowse was a notable absentee from Gareth Southgate’s England and responded by scoring five of Southampton’s first six Premier League goals after the conclusion of the tournament. It was March before the team could boast as many as three goalscorers post-Christmas.
Relying upon one prolific player isn’t always catastrophic but as accomplished as Ward-Prowse may be, he is hardly a steady supply of goals.
The Saints have scored the fewest open-play goals in the Premier League this season, boasting just 14 from 36 league games. Both Erling…
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