Sport
SOUTHAMPTON – JUST A FEEDER CLUB FOR REST OF THE EPL?
Southampton – Just A Feeder Club For Rest Of The Epl?
There was a time in the not too distant past when some of England’s best players chose to ply their trade down at The Dell and latterly at St. Mary’s.
Southampton had always been renowned as being a hotbed of talent, especially in academy circles, but it’s hugely disheartening to the locale to see all of the clubs’ best players being sold off to the highest bidder each summer.
Matt Le Tissier is probably the last big name to stay the course with the Saints, and that was nigh on two decades ago.
Since then, any talented youngster that has clawed his way up through the ranks at the club, has seen his dream of taking Southampton to lasting success dashed by the incredibly poor management of the club, both at Director and manager level.
Indeed, we can pinpoint reasonably accurately the time when things began to go awry down on the South Coast.
Harry Redknapp’s short-lived tenure in the hot-seat, which included Southampton’s first relegation in 27 years, ended with a mid-season resignation, Redknapp having left the club in a much worse position both on and off the field than when he had joined almost a year previously.
A trick he has repeated at numerous clubs on his managerial journey.
Theo Walcott’s emergence was a rare chink of light at an otherwise gloomy football club, but as the full extent of Southampton’s troubles began to reveal itself, Walcott would be sold to Arsenal to stave off the creditors.
Little would anyone have known that the youngster would be the first of many. Gareth Bale would be the next academy graduate for whom everyone had high hopes, that would have ply his trade elsewhere, like it or not.
As time passed, so the sands of the egg-timer continued to drain. The drip, drip effect of a club in crisis showed no signs of stopping and by 2009 a 10-point deduction because of the football club’s parent company going into administration condemned the Saints to the third tier of English football for the first time in 50 years.
Markus Liebherr would eventually take over the club after bitter wrangles during
that summer, and his purchase would ultimately stabilise the club for a time. Despite his death just 13 months later, businessman Nicola Cortese who had been brought in by Liebherr to oversee financial affairs set about finally getting the club on a more solid footing.
The long haul back to the Premier League was eventually secured but that too has not been without it’s problems.
Libeherr’s daughter Katharina, who’d riled much of the club support after admitting she “didn’t care for football,” decided that Cortese wasn’t the right fit for the club and so the Italian jumped before he was pushed citing personal reasons.
Those same reasons, i.e. Liebherr’s interference, could be part of the reason why so many players have left Southampton in the last few seasons. A reputation as being the Premier League’s feeder club is, unfortunately, merited.
It’s worth noting at this point that despite all of the sales listed below, Liebherr herself has recently taken out another £14.5 million loan on behalf of the club, adding to the vast debt the club has been saddled with once again.
It’s entirely possible that even more players, England international Harrison Reed for example, will be siphoned off before things start to improve.
But you have to ask yourself how a football club can be back in so much trouble, in just six years, after selling (since 2011/12):
Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain, Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert, Calum Chambers and Dejan Lovren with Morgan Schneiderlin and Nathaniel Clyne shortly expected to follow suit.
All have gone for big money.
Indeed, since the Saints were promoted back to the Premier League, they have recouped a whopping £146.5 million in transfer fees yet still remain some £50 million in debt by conservative estimates.
The “we don’t need to sell our best players” directive that was uttered by Ralph Krueger some time last year has been exposed for the lie it was and it’s therefore inevitable that the conveyor belt will keep turning for some while yet.
Ronald Koeman needs to work a miracle for Southampton to stop continuing to feed the success of their opponents whilst keeping themselves competitive.
