Premier League Preview 2019-20: Southampton
Southampton Football Club
Credit: Southampton FC
2018-19 Premier League Finish: 16th place
2019-20 Premier League Prediction: 18th place
Transfers In:
Danny Ings FW - Liverpool £20,000,000
Che Adams FW - Birmingham City £16,000,000
Moussa Djenepo MF - Standard Liege £15,000,000
Transfers Out:
Matt Targett DF - Aston Villa £14,500,000
Sam Gallagher FW - Blackburn Rovers £5,250,000
Jordy Clasie MF - AZ Alkmaar, Free Agent
Southampton has now been a mainstay in the Premier League for almost the last decade. After being promoted in 2012, Southampton quickly climbed in the top half of the league. Starting their second season after being promoted, they put a run together of 8th, 7th, 6th and 8th place finishes. A club that only a handful of years earlier was playing in the third division of English football, was now playing in Europa League. But after that last 8th place finish, Southampton has now flirted with relegation in their past two seasons. Southampton finished finished 17th 2 years ago and 16th last season. I keep thinking that this team is too good to get relegated, but that ship has sailed. I’m all out on Southampton and this is the year they get relegated, which is obviously their worst case scenario. I will say that Southampton has the highest ceiling of the other 2 teams that I chose to get relegated. Best case scenario for Southampton is around 10th.
Strength:
James Ward-Prowse
Credit: Southern Daily Echo
Well, Southampton has some decent midfielders. Southampton performance last season was pretty bad all across the board, but I do think their strong point is in the midfield. The Southampton midfield is led by players like James Ward-Prowse, Oriol Romeu, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Stuart Armstrong. Most of these guys have been great at times but haven’t consistently put in the performances to take their team’s and their career’s to the next level. These guys have all showed potential but they are also at the age where it’s time to put it all together. Kind of a hard to be a 27 yr old and still having people say that you have potential. Southampton was neither great on offense or defense last season so their success is going to rely heavily on Romeu and Hojbjerg in the defensive midfield and Ward-Prowse and Armstrong in the attacking midfield. If these guys can play well, then Southampton is going to be closer to their best case scenario rather than relegation.
Weakness:
Danny Ings
Credit: Sports Mole
The biggest weakness for Southampton is the striker position. Their attacking as a whole is not the worst as they have some decent contribution in goal scoring from midfielders and wingers like Nathan Redmond, Ward-Prowse and Hojbjerg. The biggest issue for Southampton is that they don’t have a great striker to go along with these contributions from midfield. The highest goalscorer for Southampton last year was a tie between James Ward-Prowse and Danny Ings with 7 goals. After that, their next highest scoring striker was Shane Long with 5 goals and then Charlie Austin added 2 goals. A combined 14 goals from your 3 strikers is a sure fire war to flirt with relegation. You need to be getting around 14 goals from your #1 striker alone. If Southampton is unable to bring in another striker or get an increased output from one of their current strikers, then this could spell the end of the road for Southampton in the Premier League.
Top Goalscorer Predictions:
Danny Ings: 8 goals
James Ward-Prowse: 6 goals
Nathan Redmond: 6 goals
Home Kit: Not great, not bad. The wide stripes look a lot better on this kit than they did for Newcastle, maybe it’s the colors. Definitely not a big fan of the black on the shoulders and the sponsor logo looks pretty bad as well.
Credit: Saints Store
Away Kit: Yep that’s bad. No surprise that Under Armour made this as they love going with the neon colors. Looks like it should be a goalie jersey.
Credit: Saints Store