Where has it all gone wrong at Southampton?

Southampton were embarrassed against Leicester City at St Mary’s last Friday, suffering a 9-0 defeat. Thats right. Nine-nil.

The result continued a poor run of results for Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side, who have lost four of their last five in the league.

This form has seen them drop into the bottom three and while the league is still incredibly tight, it’s a worrying times for the Saints faithful.

Their next league game couldn’t get more difficult, a trip to the Premier League champions Manchester City at the Etihad.

It’s time to look just where it has gone wrong for the Saints….

Defence the problem?

The Saints signed defender Kevin Danso in the summer in hope of sorting out what has been an under-performing back line for some time.

However, the 21-year-old has started just three of the opening ten Premier League games and has found it tough to settle into a struggling team, playing in every other position other than his most comfortable, centre-back.

The Saints have leaked the most goals in the league, one more than promoted Norwich City.

Hassenhuttl has tried numerous combinations at the back this season but is yet to find a settled backline, although the one constant is Polish defender Jan Bednerak.

The defence has struggled ever since Virgil Van Dijk and Jose Fonte left the club, with a number of players coming in, most failing to make any sort of impact.

While the scoreline against Leicester came as a surprise it’s the kind of results which has been coming, the two home games prior to the Foxes saw Saints lose 3-1 and 4-1 to Bournemouth and Chelsea respectively.

Saints were unsurprisingly dumped out of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday evening losing 3-1 to Pep Guardiola’s side.

 

Home form a concern

The home form is the real alarming concern, just one point has been collected in the opening five home games. To stay in the Premier League your home form simply has to be better than that.

It’s been something which has been a problem for a couple of years now, ever since the Ronald Koeman days, previous managers have found it difficult to get any sort of form at St Mary’s.

The only positive is, that Everton, Watford and Norwich are the next three visitors to the South Coast and all three have struggled on their travels this term, and given what’s gone on previously, these are the games where the home form can turn round.

Many of the players seem to fear playing at St Mary’s and this is a real worry, whilst the away form has been very positive, your bread and butter in Premier League is picking up points at home.

3 – Southampton have had a player sent off in each of their last three league meetings with Leicester, becoming the first side to receive a red card in 3+ consecutive PL games against a single side since Newcastle against Liverpool in May 2014 (four in a row). Setback. pic.twitter.com/GKqwVRYScK

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 25, 2019

How can it improve?

The way I see it improving is through getting back to basics, the club need to just settle down and try and get back to how they were at times last season under the Austrian.

Hassenhuttl made quite the impact when he came in and he needs to get back this formula, as many of the players have remained the same from what lied previously.

It looks to be another seen when the Saints are looking over their shoulder and seeing if there are three worse teams than them in the league, they’ve narrowly escaped in the last two season.

On the whole, it’s going to be a very tough ask to get out of this trouble, but I don’t think that it is as simple as sacking the manager because I don’t see anyone out there who would be able to do a better job than the current boss.

Next five fixtures

Man City (A)

Everton (H)

Arsenal (A)

Watford (H)

Norwich (H)

[columns] [column size=”1/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”59″ heading=”EPL” heading_type=”timeline” /][/column] [column size=”1/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”651″ heading=”Southampton” heading_type=”timeline” /][/column] [/columns]