Southampton always prided themselves on selling players, but the ocean that exists between choice and necessity is vast and deep.
The four clubs in Europe who sold players for the most money last summer can be categorised as those in the financial elite who wished to fund further spending (Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea) and those who pride themselves on selling high and reinvesting (RB Leipzig and Brighton). Next came a second-tier club on the south coast.
The bleak assessment is that Southampton had been circling the drain of their own incompetence for too long. The plan to buy young, develop and sell high had wholly fallen down after recruitment mistakes and managerial missteps. Ralph Hasenhuttl’s first season in charge was an exception: Southampton had finished between 15th and 17th in four of the previous five years.
Then, as so often happens away from the economically mighty clique, errors piled up to create a wave of inevitable decline that washed over the club.
The recent arrival of a new majority owner, Serbian Dragan Solak, exacerbated the problem because he was prepared to throw money at it. Three managers were sacked in 12 months and more than £50m spent on transfer fees last January. None of it made much difference, other than to make things worse.
The punishment, beyond Championship football for the first time in 12 years, was a loss of the crown jewels: the young (Nathan Tella, Romeo Lavia, Tino Livramento, Mohammed Salisu), the loaned (Carlos Alcaraz, Armel Bella-Kotchap, Duje Caleta-Car, Paul Onuachu) and the dependable (James Ward-Prowse).
Southampton had an owner who supporters knew little about, no manager, no captain and the core of the team had been ripped out.
One effective way of establishing a new identity is to appoint a coach whose tactical philosophy is instantly apparent; there was no English manager who fits that bill better than Russell Martin.
By the age of 38, and at MK Dons and Swansea City, Martin had gained a reputation for an emphatic commitment to possession and high pressing. If Southampton supporters were unsure of much else, they at least knew how their team would try to get promoted.
The methodology and results both stood out after an acclimatisation period during which Southampton took 10 points from their first eight league matches. Since then and until the end of the season, no Championship team took more points. It included a 23-game unbeaten league run (half their entire season) that broke a club record.
Southampton recorded an average possession 10 per cent higher than any of the 20 Championship teams who finished below them, but the standout statistic is their number of touches in the attacking third of the pitch. The Championship’s average was 6,380 but Southampton had more than 9,500. That was more than 1,500 more than any other club.
There were caveats, for outside of the 23-game run this was rarely plain sailing. Martin’s team, largely because of the occasional lapses in their pressing and thus being caught with too many players high up the pitch, conceded only two fewer goals than relegated Birmingham City and more than QPR.
They allowed four or more goals on four occasions, more than the rest of the division’s top five combined. Their results against Ipswich Town and Leicester, four defeats and 13 conceded goals, suggests that the play-offs was their appropriate end result.
Southampton are fun again – that is worth reflecting upon for a moment for it counts for plenty. During those Premier League water-treading seasons, it’s very easy to lose faith as a supporter, not in the club per se but in watching live football as a pursuit of enjoyment.
For those who spend time, money and effort on the road every other weekend, this had become an emotional emergency: 11 away league wins in three years.
This season, no team in England’s top three tiers had been involved in matches with more goals. Winning will always be the king that every supporter kneels before most readily, but after a deep funk it’s sometimes enough to witness a little mania and mystery. Martin has brought an identity back and with it, inevitably, great interest.
Which means something or everything until kick off at Wembley on Sunday afternoon, when it then means nothing at all. The first season down in the Championship can allow reality to be temporarily suspended thanks to parachute payments and the growing gap between the top two divisions. Go straight back up and you can ignore all of the cries of crisis.
For Southampton and Leeds United, then, an entirely different narrative than a year ago when Coventry City and Luton Town met under the arch.
In 2023, Wembley hosted two clubs with dreams of the ultimate completion of a redemption arc, the perfect reward for their process.
Now it’s all about avoiding the worst of what relegation always prescribes eventually: enforced austerity if you stick around.
In March, Southampton announced an £87m loss for 2022-23, a total surpassed only by Everton and Aston Villa in the Premier League. Spot the difference: neither of those two were forced to forgo full Premier League broadcast revenue this season.
Players were sold, but who is feasibly left? Kyle Walker-Peters for sure and then… not enough. Che Adams may well leave on a free transfer. Kamaldeen Sulemana and Gavin Bazunu are young but were signed for large fees.
Martin, his style and his players, have created opportunity for a good news story, the speedy recovery and the chance to atone for five bad years. But that requires victory and only victory will do. The easiest time to come back up to the Premier League is straight away. The only way to avoid difficult questions with even tougher answers is to win at Wembley.
Southampton are certainly marching on somewhere – they stand on the edge of a new era, of that we can at least be sure. What that era entails is far less defined. It may depend entirely upon what happens on Sunday. That is why this is the fixture that has it all, determining fates with its forceful blows.
