Saints Go Marching
Ralph Hasenhüttl has taken a bottom, and downward trending Premier League team and completely flipped it on its head. Following a 15th place finish in the top-flight of English football last season, there was talk of the Saints going back to the Championship for the first time since 2011-2012.
C/O: St. Mary’s Musings
Southampton even lost its top goal-scorer, Danny Ings to Aston Villa over the summer. All the signs were pointing to a regression, but instead, this young squad has come out and shocked the football world. After taking down the bottom of the table West Ham in the FA Cup, the Saints are unbeaten in their last seven contests in all competitions. This streak includes a win against Tottenham and a hard-fought draw against the league-leaders Manchester City at St. Mary's.
The squad is full of young and energetic talent for the 2021-2022 season, including former Chelsea academy player Tino Livermento, Blues loanee Armando Borja who has impressed Tuchel more than he had ever thought, and former Spurs academy player Kyle Walker-Peters. The Saints are 13th in the Premier League in terms of their budget this season at £43,790,000. Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Everton, Newcastle United, and Leicester City all have spent more money than Southampton which is a predominantly selling driven club.
After Southampton beat Everton over the weekend, Premier League pundit Michael Owen stated, "If you look at Southampton's budget, you'd have to think they'd start the season happy to end it in 15th, but they consistently keep overachieving. I see Hasenhuttl as a Spurs-style manager - I thought they'd come in for him, but they didn't and Saints fans will be happy about that. The players buy into him, he's a real smooth operator and they need to hang onto him."
C/O: The Independent
The Saints play Aston Villa, Newcastle, and Watford in their next three matches in the Premier League. All are extremally winnable given the form that Southampton is in, and all three of those teams are in the bottom half of the table. The Saints will have their work cut out for them after they drew Manchester City in the FA Cup quarterfinals. Southampton will be in front of their home fans, which was an issue for the Citizens back in January in the top-flight.
Che Adams has been proving recently that he can be relied on to score goals consistently, something he was not asked to do ever before. Adams has scored in three out of the last four league games. He netted a total of nine goals last season in 36 Premier League matches, he has seven in the top-flight in only 20 contests so far.
Armando Borja had not played a minute of top-flight football before this year except when he played in the Dutch top division last season for Vitesse Arnhem. Nobody saw someone coming to a league as quality as the Premier League and dominating at the striker position the way he is. Borja may not be scoring a massive amount of goals, but he has without question improved the Saints squad up top, as he is consistently a threat with the ball in the final third.
C/O: HampshireLive
Ghanaian central defender Mohammed Salisu is drawing interest from both Chelsea and Manchester United after he has played lights out defensively throughout the season. Salisu started his career with Real Valladolid CF before he moved to Southampton two years ago. At the beginning of the season, a newspaper in the UK ranked Salisu as the 6th best center back in the Premiership. Last season, he backed up Jannik Vestergaard who is now playing for the Foxes of Leicester City. His performance against Manchester City a few weeks ago stood out to a lot of people around the league, as Salisu has now officially arrived. A big move next summer could be in store for a defender that is taking full advantage of the opportunity in front of him.
While Southampton can be viewed as a lower-end Premier League club most of the time, the Saints have proved the critics wrong this season. Hasenhuttl is an intelligent and tactical manager, and could easily coach another team that is in a higher class than Southampton. The Saints are four points back of Tottenham, and if they end up in the top ten, it would be the first time since 2016-2017 when they finished in eighth place when the squad had Virgil van Dijk, Dušan Tadić, and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg all on the same team.
This Southampton team cannot be overlooked for possible European football in the Conference League. The last time that the Saints were playing in European football was in the 2016-2017 season. Out of the managers in the Premier League with their first name Ralph, the one that coaches the southernmost team is by far the better option. The Saints went out and beat a solid West Ham team in the FA Cup fifth round to progress to the quarterfinals for only the third time since the 2005-2006 season. All signs were pointing to a disappointing year once again for the faithful Saints fans, but with several players stepping up, the ceiling has been raised for what this team can do in 2022.
