This season’s Premier League has a surprise element, an unusual suspect for once. Southampton, my team since 1976, a team usually referred to in mainstream media as ‘lowly’ or ‘struggling’, are currently third.
Yes after 21 games, Saints are sitting in third place and there is plenty to suggest they might just stay there.
You may or may not care too much for Southampton, but if you’re not a fan of one of the ‘Big Five’ – Manchester United, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool – you should be cheering them on.
If Saints can finish top four and qualify for the Champions League it will show everyone else in the ‘Little 15′ that billionaires and bank-rolls do not make the EPL go around.
The last team to win the EPL outside of the Big 5 was Blackburn Rovers, some 20 seasons ago. Mind you, their sugar-daddy was industrialist Jack Walker, worth 600 million pounds, who plunged millions into his team. Blackburn’s top scorer that season was Alan Shearer, bought by Walker from… Southampton.
Since the EPL had its top four qualify for the Champions League in 2001-2, the Big Five have had stranglehold on these places. Only 3 of the 52 Champions League spots in those 13 seasons have gone outside of the Big Five: to Newcastle, Everton and Tottenham – three clubs who aren’t exactly struggling.
In contrast to those three, Southampton were in League One (the old Third Division) only four seasons ago. Saints had just been through financial administration and the Premier League, let alone the Champions League, looked impossibly distant. Several of Saints’ current squad who were playing Hartlepool and Halifax in front of a couple of thousand those few years ago, were celebrating at Old Trafford on Sunday in front of 72,000 silent Man United fans.
Anyone who supports a ‘small’ club knows how the EPL food chain works. Young talented players, developed by your team, or turned into stars are gobbled up by the Big Five. No one wants to sell their best talent, but when the big clubs and their big money come calling, long-term financial survival will trump short-term success.
Last season Southampton finished a very creditable eighth – our best ever EPL finish, after being as high as third. Come the off season and Adam Lallana (captain), Dejan Lovren and Luke Shaw (two best defenders), Mauricio Pochettino (manager) and several others were all lured by big money.
Most galling of all was the departure of top scorer and talisman Rickie Lambert. The man who took over the number 7 shirt from God (that’s Matt Le Tissier if you’re a Big Fiver still reading), our free-kick specialist, penalty taker and survivor of the League One days, who is now pulling splinters out of his backside at Liverpool.
A month before the season started Saints had no captain, no scorer, no defenders, no manager and little chance of avoiding relegation. To be anywhere near the top half of the table let alone in third is unbelievable and should give hope to every other club who’ve ever waved their best talent goodbye.
The Man United squad that walked off as losers on Sunday cost 239 million pounds more than Southampton’s to assemble.
Recently on The Roar was a piece called ‘Is it time to take Southampton seriously?‘. The answer is yes.
Best defence in the EPL. Recent wins over Arsenal, Everton and Man United (at Old Trafford thank you very much!). Players with a point to prove. A manger in Ronald Koeman yet to put a foot wrong. A list of very winnable fixtures to come. 60 million pounds of profit available from the big sell-off.
We’re now 21 games into the season. Little clubs just do not do this. By now it’s the Big 5 doing what they always do. The EPL is supposed to be exciting and unpredictable, except for who finishes at the top every bloody season.
Anyone who’d love to see things shaken up, any fan of the other 15, anyone who likes a good underdog story, sing it with me, “Oh when the Saints go marching in…”
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