Promotion from the Championship to the Premier League is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is the largest financial increase in world football, which can change the entire future of a club. On the other hand, clubs that enter the top division often have to throw out everything that works in the championship in order to survive.
It is not too bold to say that teams that rely on possession in their quest for promotion must quickly adapt to playing without the ball against the Liverpools and Arsenals of the world. It’s a lesson that Southampton are learning very painfully at the start of this season, and whether the club takes it to heart or not will likely decide whether the Saints return to the Championship next season.
It all starts with manager Russell Martin. The 38-year-old Englishman is in his third top job in just five years, and his meteoric rise through the ranks underlines his tactical skills. Martin managed perennial villains MK Dons to secure a move to Swansea City in 2021, where he finished his playing career. Two years later, before last season, he was on the move again, taking over at Southampton. Martin did not receive promotion in either of the first two stints, which shows how honed his style was, even without solid success.
That style is simple to describe, but difficult to execute with any player below the top tier: Martin is a staunch proponent of ownership. His teams prefer short passes, especially out of the back line, in hopes of slowly wearing down the defense. The plan is simple: stun the defence, force them out of position, then attack with incisive passes into the box. Southampton, even at their worst, are good at achieving superiority. For the season, only heavyweights Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham have completed more passes than Southampton, and the Saints had won the battle for possession in five of their first seven games.
In theory, it’s a good strategy, but Southampton don’t have the individual talent to convert their passion for the ball into points, at least not at Premier League level. This has really become a problem The problem, for the team in the Prem’s return after a one-year stint in the second division.
Let’s take the most recent match as an example. Southampton produced a strong performance at home against recently promoted fellow team Leicester City. The first half perhaps epitomized Martin’s playing philosophy. The Saints enjoyed almost 80 per cent of the possession and outclassed the visiting Foxes up and down the field. The goals came as the game progressed. In the 8th minute, Kyle Walker-Peters found a good run by Ryan Manning, and the Irishman delivered a low cross into the box, where Cameron Archer found enough space after a light deflection to score the opener.
Twenty minutes later, Walker-Peters came through again, delivering another low cross before being dribbled by James Justin. This time, Archer let it go, and Joe Aribo repeated his partner’s finish with a nice shot from what was mostly an open goal:
Given the way the game started, it was no surprise for Southampton to score two goals in the opening 28 minutes. What Was What was surprising was that there weren’t more goals, but that has been the story of the season so far. Only Manchester United are entering Saturday’s match (with Well Documented Problems) had underperformed against their expected goalscorers, and Southampton are now last in that specific metric after the Leicester match.
Still, two goals against a fellow relegation candidate, in the style in which Southampton scored, should have been enough. The problem with a style like Martin’s, however, is what happens when it impacts his team. From the 41st minute, Leicester had more of the ball than Southampton, and it was even ridiculous. Although the possession figure finished at 55–45 in Leicester’s favour, in the second half it was 62–38. Essentially, Leicester boasted their superior talent – despite both being newly promoted teams, there is no doubt that Leicester’s roster is slightly better suited to the top flight – and exposed Saints’ weaknesses in defense without the ball. Doing so, flipped the script on Southampton.
Leicester’s first goal was a classic possession: starting in their own half, Leicester made 15 passes en route to the box, and Abdul Fataou finished the move with a nifty cut-back, which 19-year-old Argentinian Facundo Buonanot headed home. Put it in. Almost a mirror image of both of Southampton’s goals.
The tide was beginning to turn, and Southampton really had no way of resisting it. This was doubly true after the 73rd minute, when a scramble in the box followed a Fatavu header from point-blank range, with Saints winger Ryan Fraser forced to pull a cheeky shirt on Jamie Vardy to force an easy tap-in for the equaliser. Can be stopped. Unfortunately for Fraser, this is the era of VAR, and replays clearly showed he had blocked a clear scoring opportunity. Not only were Leicester awarded a penalty, but Fraser was sent off, and although the score was level after Vardy’s subsequent penalty, it was still over.
And yet, it took until the end of the game for Leicester to finish the job. Despite being a man up for almost half an hour, Leicester struggled to find a winner, but eventually Leicester’s pressure was destined to crack the Southampton defence. It was a corner that signaled inevitable doom for the hosts, as a bouncer from Harry Winks’s cross in the 98th minute found both Fatavu and Jordan Ayew wide open in the box. Ayew was first to reach it, firing a Ragburner which somehow avoided the pile of bodies in front of goal and past Aaron Ramsdale.
It’s the kind of game a recently promoted team has to win, but Martin’s commitment to playing his style resulted in a defeat for Southampton. Had Southampton been better prepared to play without the ball, perhaps they would not have missed so many chances in the second half, or perhaps counter-attacked during periods of Leicester’s dominance to put the game out of reach. Instead, Southampton looked lost in the second half, thirsty for the ball but with no real plan to counter Leicester’s insistence on possession.
If Southampton are to stay ahead, Martin will have to do something he has not done in his managerial career to date: change. Since the days when his MK Dons team’s ball possession rate was the third highest in Europe, behind only the famously ball-hungry teams of Manchester City and Barcelona, he has inspired his teams to play in a way that is consistent with the ball. This approach has mostly worked, insofar as it has helped Martin climb the English football pyramid, but the team’s results have not been good when facing tough opposition. Even last season, Southampton were in line for automatic promotion before faltered towards the end, and had to win a grueling Championship playoff to get back into the Premier League.
And so, although Martin will certainly view his team’s dominance of possession in five of their eight matches so far as a success (only Arsenal, Manchester United and Leicester have outclassed the Saints on Saturday), there is no Not in doubt is the fact that the club is only 19th behind Wolverhampton on goal difference. One point from eight matches, with only six goals scored (second worst in the league), is the kind of start that gets a manager fired in favor of a caretaker who will prioritize pragmatic tactics to ensure survival. Martin is not that type of manager, but he may have to do so, otherwise his steady rise will eventually collapse, along with Southampton’s hopes of staying up this season.