That wasn’t the performance I was expecting from a team with a theoretical chance of staying up. Southampton were thoroughly beaten 2-0 by Fulham, officially relegating them to the Championship after 11 seasons in the Premier League.
I know this team was doomed even if they won out, but these players could have at least put up a better fight than that.
Despite having a slim, unlikely, yet theoretical chance of staying in the Premier League, Southampton had its worst performance since the short Nathan Jones era as they got humiliated 2-0 at home by Fulham, ensuring their 11-year run in the topflight of English football will end this season.
And, even though it’s sad for some to see such a tenured team get relegated from the Premier League, the upper hierarchy at Southampton deserved this.
Club chairman Henrik Kraft, CEO Martin Semmens, former Director of Football Operation Matt Croker, and owners Sporting Republic should all be ashamed of themselves they turned a club which constantly produced great Premier League players (ex: Luke Shaw, James Ward-Prouse, Theo Walcott, Ben White, Tyrone Mings, etc.) and a football legend (Gareth Bale) with one of the world’s best academies and finished within the Top-15 of the Premier League regularly (finished 7/11 Premier League seasons in Top-15) into an absolute dumpster fire of a club.
Seriously, how incompetent must you be to not only dismantle one of the most consistent and competitive sides in England (Southampton finished 4-straight seasons within the Top-8 from 2012-16), but also destroy one of Europe’s most successful academies?
It must be a lot as that’s exactly what this current regime has done as they’ve replaced players like Gareth Bale, Luke Shaw, Theo Walcott, Virgil Van Dijk (who started his Premier League career with the Saints), Sadio Mane (also started PL career with the Saints), Victor Wanyama (again, started PL career with the Saints), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlin (academy graduate), Adam Lallana (academy graduate), and Mauricio Pochettino (once again, also stared PL career with the Saints) with the crap that’s gotten them more losses than points this season.
And what about the managerial hiring process? Or the lack thereof to be more accurate.
Why would this Saints hierarchy fire Ralph Hasenhüttl, the man who saved them from relegation two seasons in a row prior to his dismissal back in November, and replace him with Nathan Jones, a manger who’s arguably the worst the Premier League has seen in the last three years, for the most important part of the season.
If Hasenhüttl was given to at least February (which is why they fired Jones anyway), Southampton might have actually been in a decent position to beat the odds and secure a third straight year of survival from the cold grasps of the relegation zone. Jones, whose only claim to management was coaching Luton Town, was in over his head so bad that he had less of a chance of keeping Southampton afloat than a Hobbit trying to swim an Olympic-size pool.
He was never going to be able to elevate this crap team to safety.
Sure, there are some good pieces still on this Southampton team, such as James Ward-Prouse, academy graduate Romeo Lavia, and interim manager Ruben Sellers, but the vast majority of this team is midtable level Championship players, let alone high-quality ones.
Players like Adam Armstrong, Kyle Walkers-Peters, Stuart Armstrong, Carlos Alcaraz, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Jan Bednarek, Alex McCarthy, Adam Armstrong, etc. just aren’t good enough to be starting for any Premier League side or even sides within the Top-8 of the Championship, yet every single one of these players made an appearance today.
And, even though the Saints actually came out with great energy and fight for the opening 45 minutes that saw them score an offside goal, these players level was put on full display by Fulham. After not going up 1-0, it was almost as if these lost all the heart and will to fight on for another lead as Fulham completely took control of the game and punished the Saints for two second half goals by Vinicius and the returning Alexsander Mitrovic.
It was a total slaughter as soon as Vinicius’ comical 60th minute winner (that goal pretty much sums up Southampton’s season) went in as the Saints just simply gave up, along with the crowd as they started pouring out of Saint Mary’s Stadium with 20 minutes left.
And that’s why Southampton will now play Championship football for the first time since the 2010-11 season.
So long, Saints, perhaps the Premier League will see you again someday.
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