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It’s come to be all too familiar.
No end of school feel. No departure from the norm. Southampton’s final game of the season ended how they had started. About as inevitable and expected as the sun rising each morning and the taxman collecting his money, they signed off the campaign with another three-something loss to West Ham, again, away from home.
If Southampton were a 100 metre runner, they’d probably make the final. Not good enough to win it, but then again, not so sub-par they would look out of place. But in a Premier League season, especially this one, it is deeply unforgiving of those who tend to play in fits and spurts. It is a marathon, a test of endurance and dealing with all the problems that transpire throughout a race.
Southampton’s intransigence in adapting to Premier League rigours all came to a head on Sunday afternoon. And in all honesty, much like it has done since the turn of the year.
It never used to be like this. As those players trudged down the tunnel and West Ham embarked on their lap of appreciation for the 10,000 supporters in attendance, the stadium announcer confirmed Europa League football beckons. They will be playing in Europe next season. Four years ago, a familiar message was spoken over the tannoys and into the stands. But back then, it was at St Mary’s, and said by the late, unflappable, stadium announcer, Justin Gladdis.
Southampton were ahead of the curve and entrenched amongst the enviable group of teams who seemed well placed every season to do battle for a European spot. They wouldn’t always get there, but the journey to do so was always far greater than the destination itself. Southampton looked up. Now, rather, they look for Premier League survival.
And while survival is not necessarily a bad thing – many teams would love to be given that remit across the football league – it does represent a slow, meandering drift.
In 2021, Saints reached the next stage of their various afflictions in the four years since. Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to West Ham, the somewhat annual occurrence, reached a new nadir. It meant the team conceded 68 goals across 38 Premier League games – a club record. And out of those 38 games, they lost exactly half of those.
Not only did the match follow the script, it picked up on all the specifics, too. A 3-0 loss away to West Ham, a game in which Southampton played well for the grand total of about ten minutes, before falling behind and feeling sorry for themselves.
Afterwards, Ralph Hasenhuttl called the second half of the season a “reality check” and repeated his desire to see significant changes in key positions.
“Congrats to West Ham, they deserved it today. We saw the difference between the two teams. Box to box, we were same level. In the boxes, they were at a different level today.
“There’s no point speaking about individuals. We are 15th in the table and that’s where we should be. It is not enough to perform in the first half of the season. When you conceded the second most amount of goals in the Premier League, you see what we need to change.”
The European Super League has shone a light on the current model of high end football, where the rich became wealthy scavengers and intent of vacuuming up any money that slides down the sides of the pyramid. That sense of greed and blatant disregard for balanced competition has forced the rest of the teams in the same division but ironically, not in the same league as the ‘big six’, to be just content to make up one of the 20 for the following season. It’s about survival rather than living.
Subsequently, for those without the luxury of throwing fortunes into a fire and hoping it produces fireworks, they are having to inspect their own teams a little more closely, hoping the players and the resources they have outperform their means. For all the philosophies and footballing principles, what happens in both boxes is the defining bellwether for most sides.
For Southampton, their work at either end of the pitch has been met with frank humiliation in recent times. Against West Ham, in the first 15 minutes, they played some lovely football in the areas between both boxes – pretty patterns, clever movement, lovely tidy work with the ball. All the garnishments for the game. But being pretty or lovely doesn’t win football matches. Being made to look like the younger sibling who had his toys taken off them on Christmas morning doesn’t win football matches.
Sunday’s curtain closer was reflected in the central defender matchups between the two sides. Jannik Vestergaard and Jan Bednarek, two defenders who have been widely viewed to have a higher ceiling in their careers and more steps on the ladder to climb, did their best aircraft Marshall impressions, waving West Ham’s attackers through every time they went near the goal.
The distances between the pair became staggering. Despite playing nearly 30 games together, both wore the look of two strangers, turning up for Sunday league football minutes before kick-off and calling each other ‘mate’ for the duration of the game, usually due to the fact that you don’t know the other’s name.
If one went to apply pressure on the ball, often getting too close to Michail Antonio (again), the other suddenly felt compelled to drop 15 yards deeper. The whole backline became one great diagonal mess. Speaking post-match, Hasenhuttl called the lead-up to Pablo Fornals’ first goal “a farce.”
Meanwhile, in West Ham’s corner stood Craig Dawson and Angelo Ogbonna, two players in their thirties and likely to have reached their limit of potential. Yet, they ensued to deliver a defensive masterclass on their counterparts. A lesson in the art of throwback defending, what it actually means to keep a clean sheet.
While Hasenhuttl has regularly spoken on the need to somehow tighten up a malfunctioning defence, his initial attempts are not working. In recent games, the Saints boss has instructed Nathan Redmond – nominally one of the side’s number tens – to drop so deep out of possession he falls in line with the back four. Perhaps it was to cover the deficiencies at left-back, and having added protection of a winger would give Mohammed Salisu less to deal with. But it hasn’t worked. If anything, Redmond’s form has become even more erratic and the team’s troubles are being even more exposed down that side. Both of West Ham’s first half goals came via the left.
Fornals’ second goal, three minutes after the first one, was just about indicative of where this side sits, mentally. Before the game, this writer opined that Southampton will need to deal with the undoubted momentum shifts in the game, particularly with the hosts having supporters back and a chance to finish in Europe. They would have to endure moments of suffering and draw the sting out of the game. If Prost International can recognise that pre-game, why couldn’t Southampton?
The goal itself was schoolboy. Two international defenders, in Bednarek and Vestergaard, for some reason thinking that marking grass would be better than marking anyone. Fornals couldn’t believe his luck. While he went off knee-sliding to the corner flag, it was hands on hips time for Saints. The same limp walk back to the halfway line, the same token clap of encouragement from James Ward-Prowse, the same heads going down.
Now let’s get onto what happened at the front. It was just about summed up as early as the 46th minute. Ibrahima Diallo, still keen but physically outmatched by West Ham, ran onto a loose ball on the edge of the box. Supporters breathed in sharply, clearly anxious. There was no need to be anxious. Diallo’s shot was blocked by his team-mate, Danny Ings, who then himself got into a tangle trying to get out of the way.
Redmond, who was now playing higher in the second half, then ventured into the box. He received the ball just left of centre, before performing a typical routine of his by slowing the attack down and letting opposing defenders recover into shape. However, this time, it seemed to have worked. Redmond cut in and onto his stronger foot, set to fire a clear shot towards Lukasz Fabianski’s goal.
Instead of aiming his effort towards the far post, where the netting was literally yearning for the ball to go there, he decided to hammer it into the near post and into the side netting.
Southampton used to be a team that thrived in chaos and that was translated in their work in both boxes. They used to be destructive, sometimes brilliant and mostly anarchic in their approach. Nowadays, it’s just become sad. David Moyes bringing on Issa Diop, another central defender, with three minutes to go, just felt the perfect tinge of irony to end the season on. Moyes could have brought on David Gold in central defence for the final 20 minutes.
Ralph Hasenhuttl must now take his fair share of the blame, too. His decision to take off Kyle Walker-Peters, the team’s best attacker on the day, midway through the second half embodied the state of confusion. He moved Ward-Prowse to right-back and to play ‘on the highest line.’ Instead, it turned out that Southampton would enter the final 25 minutes with a system that held no width, with two full backs that didn’t overlap.
The game, much like the last four years, looked to be meandering out. Well that’s until West Ham rubbed one more lump of salt into the gaping wounds. Declan Rice would run through this time, with Bednarek looking like he had something heavy on his back trying to catch up and Vestergaard deciding to run away (quite literally) from the onrushing Rice. 3-0. Again.
Southampton’s defending is the one overarching chink in Hasenhuttl’s make-up. They are all too quickly keen to revert to last ditch tackles and back-to-the-wall defending. A lack of cool heads and tangible leaders means that the numbers for the meat and potatoes aspects of defending, such as blocks (14th in the league) and clearances (12th), don’t reflect that type of attitude. Southampton have also made the most last man tackles in the division with six – a sure sign of the frenzy that encompasses the back four.
As stated, only relegated West Brom (76) have shipped in more than this team. Though statistics do not need to remind you that this defence is significantly underperforming, it is somewhat beneficial to see the whole picture. Southampton’s xGA (expected goals against) has verged on the damning. Their total of 58.55 shows they have conceded 9.45 more goals than the quality of chances they gave up. In other words, they let in almost 10 more goals than they were expected to. It is a damaging slight on the last line of defence but also the goalkeepers.
The heavy reliance on Danny Ings as the side’s only natural goalscorer has been underlined due to his regular absences. Che Adams’ form has been, to quote Hasenhuttl, like ‘ketchup.’ Fruitful spells have been offset with periods of famine in front of goal. Ward-Prowse and Stuart Armstrong notwithstanding, Saints’ production line hasn’t eased the burden on the forwards.
Though supporters often rue missed chances and the lack of finality in some of Southampton’s end product, xG suggests their forwards slightly overperformed this season. The quality of chances created meant the forward line should have scored 45 goals this season, but their xG total of -1.72 resulted in the team scoring 47 goals.
However, since the turn of the year, that xG total decreased considerably. Partly to having dramatically outperformed their xG earlier on in the season, but also due to a clear decline in performances. Goalscoring metrics bottomed out during the winter and so too did the genuine quality found in this team.
Southampton are good in some parts of the season and some parts of the game. But if the last four years has told us anything, they never last the course of a 90 minute 38 game Premier League season. Inevitably, they then find a way to implode.
Much like before.
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