LAST May when Burnley were relegated to the Championship following six seasons in the top flight, their squad disintegrated. By the time September rolled around, only seven players who had made an appearance in their failed Premier League campaign remained.
With a new manager at helm as well - Vincent Kompany replacing caretaker boss Mike Jackson - Burnley had to start fresh.
Granted, the parachute payments and general financial struggles of the Championship helped, but the Clarets embarked on a seismic rebuild that saw 16 players arrive either on loan or permanently.
Nine months later and Burnley are heading back to the Premier League and Saints - going in the opposite direction - can learn a lot about how they’ve rebuilt their squad following relegation.
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The impending squad exodus can be a blessing in disguise for Saints and those in charge must make sure that it does indeed become exactly that.
The current iteration of this Saints squad has been built disastrously.
You can’t accuse Sport Republic of holding back in their spending after the past two transfer windows saw 14 senior players arrive for a total of nearly £150m. But outside of the credit the new owners deserve for such a heavy expenditure, it’s hard to feel great about the way they’ve constructed this Saints squad.
At 30 players, the squad is simply far too big and far too bloated. It’s led to numerous players essentially becoming frozen out and a total lack of consistency within the team.
These issues have been highlighted by the success - or rather failure - of Saints’ January business.
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Mislav Orsic has played a total of six Premier League minutes since joining from Dinamo Zagreb while striker Paul Onuachu has failed to start any of his side’s last ten league matches. Meanwhile, James Bree, signed for Nathan Jones, has disappeared from the first team picture.
A similar story unfolds when assessing last summer’s business. While plenty of productive business was done with signings of talented young players such as Romeo Lavia and Armel Bella-Kotchap, multiple other additions - Joe Aribo, Samuel Edozie, and Duje Caleta-Car to name three - have been ostracised from the starting XI at various points.
Yet despite the massive size of the squad - only Nottingham Forest using more than the 32 players Saints have trotted out in the Premier League this season - it’s still devoid of major elements needed.
It’s a young squad desperately lacking in experience - something pointed out by multiple first team players in recent months - and it’s a squad desperately lacking in parts that fit together and missing difference-makers that can turn a close game their way.
When Saints hosted Bournemouth a fortnight ago in one of their biggest games of the season - and one of their last chances to ignite a survival bid - they started with just three of the 14 players signed by Sport Republic over the past year.
The message was clear: those players were not trusted in the crucial moments. The problem with that though, is that the replacements once again proved they don’t deserve all the opportunities they’ve received.
With 12 single-goal defeats this season and consistent failure to overturn tight deficits against those in and around the relegation scrap, this squad has managed to defy their collective ability by becoming hands-down the worst team in the division, even if there is clear quality amongst the individuals.
Unavoidably - and potentially fortunately - all that will have to change in the summer. Relegation will mean changes, for good or for bad. And change presents an opportunity.
Some players will be snapped up by clubs higher up the pyramid or around Europe with Lavia, Bella-Kotchap, Ward-Prowse, Che Adams, Mohammed Salisu and Kyle Walker-Peters all seemingly headed for the exit door.
Additionally, questions must be asked about the flurry of players who have arrived in the past year and seen their careers nosedive. Caleta-Car, Onuachu, Orsic, Aribo, Edozie, and Mara all belong in that group (although one could argue Mara's stock has somewhat risen) while those signed slightly earlier - Adam Arsmtrong and Ibrahima Diallo two examples - could also leave in order to get their career back on track.
Meanwhile, Moi Elyounoussi, Theo Walcott, and Willy Caballero are out of contract this summer and Ainsley Maitland-Niles’ loan will be expiring as well. On top of that, Adams, Salisu, Diallo, and Stuart Armstrong have contracts expiring the following summer.
There’s uncertainty surrounding the futures of pretty much every single Saints player and while it’s critical to keep a few of their assets as they attempt to rebuild a core group, that list is extremely short. Charly Alcaraz must be kept at all costs while a year in the Championship should do wonders for Tino Livramento.
Many Saints fans would like to see Jan Bednarek stay while Kamaldeen Sulemana could prove to be a major threat against slightly reduced competition. But these players are the outliers rather than the norm in this underwhelming Saints squad.
While the Championship might be slightly easier than it was a few years ago following collective financial turmoil due to the impact of Covid, it is still a buital division, a constant physical battle with 46 games to play rather than 38.
If Saints are to go up at the first attempt, they’ll need something that they’ve failed to display all season: a collective team spirit and a collective team identity. That requires shedding the fat - and sadly shedding those who will be pilfered from teams higher up - and that requires recruiting players who are hungry for the challenge ahead.
It’s fair to wonder if the entirety of the current Saints squad was truly up for the relegation fight and those questions of the intangible qualities can not be a problem next season.
Somewhat promisingly, relegation to the Championship would open the window of possible recruitment. There would suddenly be an opportunity to recruit from around the Championship without fears of players making the step up to the Premier League while there would be much more scope for loans from those remaining in the top flight.
Burnley’s impressive campaign was in no small part aided by loans from Manchester City, Chelsea, Brentford, and of course, Saints, with Nathan Tella.
This Saints squad is destined to break up - that’s a near certainty. Relegation would see some leave for ‘bigger’ moves while others will decide the Championship isn’t for them. And really, that’s fine. There can’t be any question of commitment next time around.
Saints should receive plenty of money from transfer fees this summer and that should make them kings of the Championship market.
Coupled with some impressive talent from the Saints B team as well as those on loan and Sport Republic have the opportunity to make people forget about the disastrous squad building of the last year and put together a team that can go back up at the first time of asking.
But that recruitment needs to look different. It can’t just be a case of asset-gathering with the intention of then selling players on for a profit. Sport Republic must recruit to the manager’s blueprint - whoever that manager ends up being - and they have to recruit to fit together with one another in a squad in order to curate a real team.
Will fans be devastated at the raft of departures this summer? Losing captain James Ward-Prowse will hurt while it is truly a shame that the St Mary’s crowd likely won’t get to see Lavia in a Saints shirt for much longer.
But outside of the exceptions, there will be a grunt of ‘whatever’ that greets each exit this summer from most Saints fans and that is reflective of the meek effort they have delivered this season to curtail 11 years of Premier League status with barely a whimper.
This current Saints group is truly an atrocious example of how to build a squad even if it does include some very good individuals. Saints will have the opportunity to rebuild in the summer and that could very well be a blessing in disguise - just as it was for Burnley.
Sport Republic and the Saints hierarchy now must ensure that it does indeed prove to be that blessing in disguise rather than another chapter of failed building.
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