Southampton set for relegation that didn't need to happen

That isn’t to say they don’t deserve the fate that seems destined for them. Make no mistake about it, when Saints eventually are relegated to the Championship there can be no lingering ill-will towards lady luck or blame handed out to external sources.

This relegation will be all Saints’ own doing, a failure of epic proportions and amongst lasting feelings of anger and disappointment, it will be hard to escape a lingering sensation of deep regret. This didn’t need to happen. But it has.

READ MORE: Where do Saints go next after latest failure leaves them on the brink?

Last February, just weeks after Sport Republic officially took charge, Saints had their eyes firmly set on a first top ten finish under Ralph Hasenhuttl. It appeared that years of building under the stress of potential relegation had finally reached its pinnacle as a young and hungry team chased down the league’s established European participants.

At the very least, it seemed that there were the right building blocks in place for new and ambitious owners to come in and take Saints to the next level, to reward years of relative struggle with the bright future that struggle and survival had earned.

Instead, a year later, Saints are headed for the Championship.

Financial backing hasn’t been an issue with Sport Republic splurging nearly £150m across the last two transfer windows while recuperating barely a penny in sales. But that heavy expenditure only makes this disintegration more dramatic and the feelings of regret more intense.

In that heavy expenditure there are good players. Within the squad Sport Republic inherited there are good players. But as was proven for the umpteenth time on Thursday night against Bournemouth, there has been a categorical failure to build a team and the collective has faced far-reaching consequences that their individuals have not been able to halt.

All those wasted building blocks and all that money spent to go backwards has to be accompanied by mandatory regret and has to lead to serious questions about the decisions and the decision making processes that have expedited this perilous situation.

Lyanco reacts after Saints' defeat to Bournemouth. (Image: Stuart Martin)

The decision to stick by Hasenhuttl in the summer when there was an opportunity to start fresh must be questioned. Hasenhuttl is clearly a good manager but at a time when the requirement was to build a new team and bed in a new generation of Saints players, they stuck by a coach whose man-management had started to come into question.

Then, when Hasenhuttl was sacked with Saints toiling near the bottom of the table, Sport Republic leaned into ideas of a long term project and hired a project manager, someone who wants and needs time to stamp his principles on a club - Nathan Jones.

Both managerial decisions show a fundamental misunderstanding of team-building and timing. Hasenhuttl was kept on at a time when Saints could have brought in a new manager to instigate a long-term rebuild. In other words, there was an opportunity for a project and a project-building boss to lead it.

But by the time they recruited the manager who fit that mold, the opportunity had been lost. 

The same fundamental misunderstandings were seen in how Sport Republic built this current squad. Sport Republic embarked on a brutal upheaval in the summer window, designed - it seemed - to spark a new wave for the club and this team.

In total, nine players were added to the first team squad. Those nine had an average age of 21 years old with fees spent on Gavin Bazunu, Romeo Lavia, Sekou Mara, Samuel Edozie, and Armel Bella-Kotchap, and Juan Larios - all 20 years or younger at the time of their signings.

Any large-scale recruitment drive like that will come with its outgoing casualties and that was the case for Saints who let nine players depart - either permanently or on loan - from the previous season’s squad. 

The average age of those nine was 27.7 years old. Included in that list of exits was Fraser Forster, Oriol Romeu, and the now returned Jan Bednarek, three players who had established themselves as leaders in Hasenhuttl’s side.

Granted, it was fair to wonder if that trio - and much of the Saints squad - was good enough based on their late season collapse but to completely write them off now looks ludicrous. And this is where once again, Sport Republic failed to grasp the importance and requirements for team and squad building rather than simple asset-gathering.

A squad, a team, needs balance. The pieces need to fit together and it needs glue to piece it together. That’s particularly the case with a squad full of young players still learning who they are as people and footballers. 

Instead, Sport Republic chose to rid the squad of any of their possible glue while recruiting no real replacements from the intangible perspectives of experience and guts.

Charly Alcaraz pictured during Saints' 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth. (Image: Stuart Martin)

The laughable case of Gavin Bazunu stands out as a prime example of how Sport Republic so badly misjudged the balance required in a squad and perhaps the level of the Premier League. While he’s yet to prove it in a Saints shirt, Bazunu is a quality young player full of potential. You don’t earn double-digit international caps at the age of 21 without that being the case.

But Bazunu was launched into a situation seemingly designed to bring out the worst of him rather than offer him the protection someone in his position - and at his age - requires. Not only was Bazunu’s real potential competition in Forster allowed to walk away but the young defence in front of him was subsidised with more youth.

It took 33 Premier League games for Bazunu to be dropped or taken out of the firing line following a season full of high-profile errors and in truth, it’s a decision that should have come a lot earlier. And with Forster at the club, it’s a decision that probably would have come a lot earlier.

But Bazunu certainly wasn’t helped by the defence in front of him. Kyle Walker-Peters is a talented young player. As is Mohammed Salisu. And the same can be said for Armel Bella-Kotchap, who arrived in the summer. But even last season, fans were crying out for experience at the back to lead this talented young cohort and instead, Sport Republic went the other direction.

In midfield they did the same. And up front? Well, that’s a diabolical mess in itself. The failure to sign a marquee striker in the summer has been documented at nauseam and when instant impact was required to fix the goal scoring problem in January, Sport Republic reached back into their pockets with a splurge of nearly £50m.

Of their five January signings - Mislav Orsic, Charly Alcaraz, James Bree, Paul Onuachu, and Kamaldeen Sulemana - only Alcaraz can be considered a true success. Bree became an afterthought as soon as Nathan Jones left while the other three have combined for zero goals and zero assists with Orsic playing a total of six Premier League minutes.

£8m.

There are no words. #SaintsFC https://t.co/d1ybgWDKWv pic.twitter.com/qvGb7RXnPD

— Benjy Nurick (@BenjyNurick) April 28, 2023

Quite simply, the players don’t seem to fit with what Ruben Selles wants from his Saints team and in truth, they didn’t seem to fit with what Jones wanted either. So why were they signed?

All this spending and all this subpar recruitment has left the Saints squad bloated and each of their three managers has struggled to sort through that bloated mess to figure out a best starting XI, if such a thing even exists. Consistency has never been there from a personnel standpoint and those that have managed to keep their spots, haven’t really deserved such forgiveness.

That said, there’s no doubt that there is a group of players in that mega-squad who are capable of carrying Saints much further than they’ll reach this season.

Results against Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, and Spurs have shown the possibilities, the ceiling of this group. And 12 one-goal defeats has shown that perhaps they are slightly closer than the table suggests. But they haven't been close enough and that is particularly the case in their biggest moments.

The blame for that failure has to go to Sport Republic who have catastrophically misunderstood how to build a successful squad, the managers who have repeatedly and stubbornly been governed by fear, and the players themselves who have failed to take their opportunities on countless occasions.

When Saints went down in 2005, there could an element of pride associated with that concrete failure. While Rupert Lowe and the Saints board were understandable targets for criticism, the players themselves were applauded off the pitch on the final day as they at least departed the top flight with a real fight.

Marcus Tavernier celebrates scoring Bournemouth's winner on Thursday night. (Image: Stuart Martin)

The same can not be said this time around. Saints are going to go down with the knowledge that it didn’t have to be this way. They’ll go down with the knowledge that they have - or had - the players to fare so much better. And they’ll go down with the unavoidable feeling that their players and managers didn’t leave everything they had out on the pitch to reverse the situation.

When the summer comes, the Saints squad will be drastically altered. Amongst the inevitable slew of departures, a number of Saints players will be snapped up by clubs higher up the football ecosystem. A number of them will likely go on to have impressive careers. And this Saints failure will disappear into their rearview as the mirage it might have appeared.

But this city and the supporters will be left to deal with the fall-out. The fall-out of naive or arrogant squad-building. The fall-out of a group of players lacking in the intangible qualities needed for a dogfight. And the fall-out of scared tactics designed to slow the bleeding rather than truly fight back.

It might feel hollow to some, it might feel depressing to others. But when the dust settles and when Saints contemplate the end of their 11-season stay in the Premier League, the lasting feeling will no doubt be regret. Because it all could have been so different.