Are Southampton over or underperforming? What the data tells us about new season

The new campaign began with concern as Tottenham Hotspur ran riot on opening day to beat Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side 4-1 before they went down 2-0 against Leeds United entering the final 20 minutes at St Mary's.

But late goals from Joe Aribo and Kyle Walker-Peters earned Saints their first point of the season and the revival seemed to spark them into life. Six points followed across three games against Leicester City, Manchester United, and Chelsea.

READ MORE: Tino Livramento backed to be 'even better than he was' on injury return

The 2-1 win against Chelsea felt like something of a positive turning point for this young team but they followed that huge victory with consecutive 1-0 defeats to Wolves and Aston Villa leading into the current international break.

With so many questions still unanswered and the potential of this team locked in the realms of the unknown, seven games is not long enough to draw firm conclusions about this Hasenhuttl's new side. 

But what can we find out from the first fifth of the 2022/23 Premier League season? Let’s dive into the data to see…

Hasenhuttl and his players walk off the pitch after defeat to Aston Villa. Image: PA (Image: Hasenhuttl and his players walk off the pitch after defeat to Aston Villa. Image: PA)

Squad Make-Up and Squad Shake-Up

A youthful summer rebuild saw Saints bring in nine first team players with an average age of 21. Joe Aribo was the eldest new recruit, turning 26 shortly after his arrival on the South Coast while four teenagers joined - Romeo Lavia, Samuel Edozie, Juan Larios, and Sekou Mara who has since turned 20.

Amongst those who departed - either at the expiry of their contracts or otherwise - included Fraser Forster (34), Shane Long (35), Oriol Romeu (30), Jack Stephens (28), Jan Bednarek (26), and Nathan Redmond (28). Naturally, this has meant that a young squad has become significantly younger.

Stuart Armstrong is the oldest current Saint to appear in the Premier League this season. (Image: Stuart Armstrong is the oldest current Saint to appear in the Premier League this season.)

Last season, the Saints squad ranked as the fourth-youngest in the Premier League with an average age of 26.3. This season they sit joint-youngest alongside Arsenal with an average age of 24.

This youthfulness is made even more drastic by the prominent roles handed to some of these youngsters from the offset. Gavin Bazunu and Armel Bella-Kotchap sit joint-first and fifth respectively amongst Saints’ players with the most minutes so far while Romeo Lavia had played every minute of Premier League action until his hamstring injury against Chelsea.

A total of 24 players have appeared in the Premier League so far for Saints this season with only deadline day signing Duje Caleta-Car as well as Alex McCarthy and Theo Walcott yet to make their 22/23 bow.

Four players have started all seven games - Bazunu, James Ward-Prowse, Mohammed Salisu, and Kyle Walker-Peters while Bella-Kotchap and Moi Elyounoussi have started all six since the defeat at Spurs.

Who has played the most for Saints this season? (Image: Who has played the most for Saints this season?)

Hasenhuttl has spoken repeatedly in the past about his support for the introduction of five substitutes and he’s stuck true to his word this season, making a total of 29 subs in seven games - 4.1 per game - second-most in the division.

Those changes proved ineffective at Wolves and Aston Villa as Saints twice failed to turn around a deficit suffered shortly before half-time. But the Austrian did find success with his substitutions against Leeds and Leicester.

Game Patterns

Here’s a positive statistic for you: Saints won nine points from losing positions last season. They’ve already won seven in the new campaign.

Here’s a negative statistic for you: Saints have trailed at some point in all seven of their Premier League games, the only team in the league to do so.

The only time Saints scored the first goal of the game came against Spurs when Ward-Prowse’s 12th minute volley gave them a fleeting advantage. In the six other games, Saints have conceded first. While their ability to recover after going behind is no doubt crucial and at times thrilling, it is not sustainable, as we’ve seen in the last two matches.

The similarities in each game are worrying. The defeats to Wolves and Aston Villa were virtually the same in nature, Saints conceding the only goal of the game on the stroke of half-time before failing to muster a response after the break.

But it hasn’t only been just before half-time where Saints have struggled, doing the same directly after the break. Three of the 11 goals conceded this season have come within five minutes of half-time while five have come within ten minutes of the break and eight of 11 (73%) within 20 minutes either side of the interval.

How have Saints performed in each period of their games? (Image: How have Saints performed in each period of their games?)

Only one team - Bournemouth - has a worse goal difference between the 30th and 60th minutes than Saints’ -6. Whether it’s bad luck or a lack of concentration, this is something that needs to be addressed immediately.

On the bright side, they have seemingly addressed one common achilles heel from last season - faltering late on in games. Only four teams last season had a worse goal difference in the final quarter-hour of games than Saints’ -5 but this time around they have been on the positive side, scoring twice and conceding none (scoring four and conceding two in the final half-hour of games).

And while, the lack of a clean sheet thus far - Leicester the only other team to do the same - defensively Saints appear to be improving. After conceding six in their first two games, they’ve conceded just five in the five games since. Now, if only they could start scoring…

Saints have lost four games this season - fourth-most in the division - and only drawn two - 12th-most. Three of their four defeats have come by one goal, all with the same scoreline of 1-0. If Saints are going to gatecrash the top ten or even just survive with relative comfort, then they will have to start turning some of those slender defeats into positive results.

What Should Be Expected?

Some believe in the merit of expected goals, some do not. Either way, it’s an interesting exercise to see what the expected totals suggest for how Saints should be doing in the early days of this new season.

More on Expected Goals and what it can tell us can be found here...

The main headline for this section is that Saints are underperforming across the board. As we head towards the end of September, Saints sit 14th in the Premier League table on seven points.

Expected points measures the number of points a team could have expected to take from each game, based on the quality of chances created and conceded in those games. Saints sit 9th in the expected points table with nine points.

The inability to match expectations can be easily explained by how they have performed in the other expected categories - expected goals for and against. Saints have socred seven goals in their seven games this season but they should have found the net around nine times (8.81xG according to Wyscout) based on the quality of chances they have created.

Who leads Saints in expected goals this season? Data: FBref (Image: Who leads Saints in expected goals this season? Data: FBref)

Moi Elyounoussi’s blocked header against Chelsea and Che Adams’ handball from one yard out at Wolves headline a mixed start for Saints in front of goal. But in other games - such as the defeat at Villa Park - they didn't even create chances to miss. Saints must improve in both making and taking chances.

With Armel Bella-Kotchap impressing early on in his Saints career, Hasenhuttl’s defence actually looks quite solid despite not keeping a clean sheet just yet.

While they are also underperforming their defensive metrics, conceding 11 goals with an expected goals against of 9.77, that in itself doesn’t tell the whole story. 3.54xG - 36% of that total - came in the first two games of the season.

Even if it doesn't fully show up in stats defensively the signs are pointing in the right direction with a settled centre-back pairing and a full-time left-back available in Romain Perraud. Bazunu's first clean sheet in a Saints shirt is coming.

In terms of xG, Saints had actually 'won' the four games leading up to Aston Villa before a nothing performance. Clearly there is a lot of work still to do though.

Data: Wyscout, FBref

That's all for the first installment of Saints' 2022/23 Premier League campaign data dump. We'll be back tomorrow for Part Two, looking at how Saints have performed on and off the ball as well as any individual standouts.

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