Anything other than victory at home to Fulham on Saturday will send Southampton down to the Championship.
Even then, it feels increasingly likely to be a stay of execution.
If they are relegated, then player turnover is inevitable, especially in a squad that is the second largest in the Premier League behind Chelsea and is chronically underperforming.
The Premier League’s vultures are circling. The Athletic already compiled a squad audit of who is likely to stay and leave, but what clubs will suit Southampton’s key players?
Romeo Lavia to Liverpool
Lavia has been head and shoulders above any other player this season when it comes to consistency, despite only turning 19 in January and still being in his first year of first-team football. He recently made his debut for Belgium’s national team and will fetch the most money of any Southampton player, turning a significant profit on the £10million (€11.50m) paid for him nearly a year ago, even with a sizeable sell-on percentage going to Manchester City.
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Numerous Premier League sides have held informal talks and scouts, who have been in attendance over the past month at St Mary’s, have left impressed, noting how Lavia continues to stand out in a dysfunctional team.
City’s £40million (€46.02m) buy-back clause (which will be less than that figure due to their own sell-on clause) will come into play next summer, so it would make sense for Southampton to cash in on him this summer.
Liverpool’s midfield requires major surgery. Ageing legs and a general weariness have sapped the energy out of Jurgen Klopp’s tactics. Lavia’s schooling in the Anderlecht and City academies means he is incredibly press-resistant and highly proficient when receiving the ball while facing his own goal — crucial to operating as a lone No 6 in a 4-3-3 shape, as Liverpool do. When Lavia first arrived, there was acknowledgement internally that only he possessed the prerequisites to enable Southampton to play through the thirds under pressure.
Demonstrated in the example below against Chelsea, Lavia demands the ball from the goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu and evades pressure through a no-touch turn.
Some of Lavia’s data is hardly eye-catching, ranking in the bottom eight per cent of midfielders from Europe’s top five leagues for Expected Goal Assists (xGA) and in the bottom 29 per cent for passes completed per 90 minutes (41.37). However, his surface-level numbers belie his deeper importance, both in ball retention and composure when connecting the thirds together, as shown below.
Southampton are the seventh-lowest side in the Premier League for progressive passes into the final third, yet Lavia has made the second-most of any player, despite missing nine games through injury.
As City first identified, he has metronomic characteristics, providing he is in a team that is far more possession-based than Southampton. Without the ball, there is scope for improvement in his physical robustness. Lavia often struggles with hamstring niggles and, as Ruben Selles remarked in early March, the 19-year-old needs to “dominate games” more instead of simply garnishing them.
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Selles’ words appeared to provoke a response in Lavia over the next four weeks and until the international break. In that period, no player in the league won the ball in the middle and attacking thirds as many times. He is the only teenager to have made over 50 tackles this season (53, 2.4 per 90), while 7.8 ball recoveries per game place him in the top 15 players in the league. The image illustrates Lavia’s ability to cover the width of the pitch.
Learning from Fabinho initially, complemented by Klopp’s teachings out of possession should, in theory, facilitate Lavia in becoming the well-rounded, complete midfielder many expect him to be.
Kyle Walker-Peters to Arsenal
Walker-Peters changed representation last year, moving from YMU Sport to CAA Stellar and joining close friend Dele Alli’s agent and brother, Harry Hickford. He fulfils the homegrown quota and can play in both full-back positions, making him an attractive proposition for Premier League clubs in European competitions.
With Arsenal in the Champions League and having two right-backs of similar profile in Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu, Walker-Peters’ tactical intelligence might be helpful for Mikel Arteta’s wide rotations.
Although Walker-Peters spent seven years in the academy at Tottenham Hotspur, a move to the other side of north London would not be a complete surprise. Last summer, several suitors monitored the defender as no progress was made over a new contract at St Mary’s. Everton were interested, but their finances and league position made a potential move ambitious, while Manchester United and, most notably, Arsenal kept tabs.
Using smarterscout, which gives players a series of ratings from zero to 99 relative to either how often they perform a given stylistic action or how effective they are at it compared with others playing in their position, we see an acute upturn in Walker-Peters’ attacking output when he has been moved to left-back.
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Those who have worked with Walker-Peters say that playing on his unfavoured side enables his greater strengths, such as his dribbling dexterity. It also compensates for his inconsistent crossing on the opposite side.
At left-back, the twice-capped England international is more incisive in his decision-making, carrying the ball into more threatening areas of the pitch. This was evidenced in his extremely impressive xG from ball progression last season (94 out of 99).
As the pizza chart above illustrates, Walker-Peters was as good as it gets in carry and dribble volume (99 out of 99) when deployed at left back. Defensively, he is reliable, disrupting opposition moves (85 out of 99) and this season has made the second-most tackles of any Southampton player (54).
Keeping in mind how Arteta has used Oleksandr Zinchenko in a quasi-midfield role this season, particularly when building in a 3-2-5 shape, Walker-Peters is capable of performing a similar remit.
The 26-year-old has made the most progressive carries of any Southampton player by a distance (90), with Stuart Armstrong, the next best, on just 57. Pertinently, 68 of Walker-Peters’ carries went into the final third — again the highest in the team — and he has attempted the most take-ons (89).
This season, his ball-carrying qualities rank in the top six per cent of full-backs in Europe (3.46 per 90) and are a huge vehicle for ball progression at Southampton, as the image below highlights. If Arteta, therefore, did want a different profile of right-back, one more inclined to hold higher and wider positions than White or Tomiyasu, Walker-Peters would be adept in doing so.
Armel Bella-Kotchap to Brentford
Since signing for a fee worth around £10million (€11.5m), Bella-Kotchap experienced a sharp trajectory initially at Southampton, becoming Ralph Hasenhuttl’s first-choice centre-back and being called up to the German national team in September. He is comfortable defending large spaces, and tends to work well in “ball-orientated” pressing methods. His pace can compensate for inexperience at times, allowing him to make up ground quickly when dragged into wide areas.
Bella-Kotchap convinced national coach Hansi Flick to take him to the World Cup ahead of Mats Hummels, with his stock then at its highest. The 21-year-old is a confident individual, but can be prone to lapses of misjudgment and timekeeping. A fortnight ago, he was left out of the squad for the game against Bournemouth due to an off-field issue, with Selles insisting he was “not ready to perform”.
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Lately, Bella-Kotchap’s form has been erratic, punctuated by shoulder and hamstring injuries. He has appeared vulnerable physically and tactically. That is in stark contrast to his general stylings as a front-footed and aggressive player. He has also recorded the second-most interceptions of any Southampton player (44) despite playing only 60 per cent of available minutes.
He is ruled out for the remainder of the season after sustaining a hamstring injury against Nottingham Forest, when he was caught out by the speed of Brennan Johnson.
There remains a rawness to the German-Cameroonian, typified in instances where he can lose his positional awareness, particularly when defending crosses.
Yet it is inevitable, taking into account his age and style as a defender, that there will be bumps in the road. There is work to be done in possession, where Bella-Kotchap ranks in the bottom 14 per cent of centre-backs for progressive passes. From a developmental perspective, moving to Brentford and under Thomas Frank is likely to help smooth over his rough edges. Brentford would inherit a young, right-footed centre-back, capable of replacing the departing Pontus Jansson and offer an alternative to the left-footers Ben Mee and Ethan Pinnock.
In addition, Brentford are one of six teams who have less possession than Southampton and attempt the second-most long passes in Premier League. This suggests Bella-Kotchap’s weakness in playing through the lines would not be felt as keenly.
James Ward-Prowse to Newcastle United or Aston Villa
Ward-Prowse is the highest-paid player in Southampton’s history, earning in the region of £100,000 a week. He is widely viewed as Southampton’s only consistent player and leader due to his attitude and approach — even in the face of relegation — but has been open to a move away for a while.
At 28 years old, it is the right time for a goodbye, and there has long been an expectation he will leave this summer. Southampton will not stand in his way, provided they are content with the fee. Aston Villa have been long-term admirers, dating back to the £25million (€28.76m) offer that was rejected in 2021 and, as it turned out, engendered a new five-year contract that did not contain a release clause.
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Ward-Prowse is as close to a one-player team as you can get. He is Southampton’s can-do man, invariably topping most statistics across attacking and defending. He has played the most minutes (3,105), scored the most goals (eight), registered the highest xGA (6.0), completed the most passes (1606) and crosses (235), recorded the most shot-creating (120) and goal-creating actions (eight) and made the most tackles (58), ball recoveries (209) and interceptions (49).
If those statistics do not leave you breathless, then his influence, as captain and conduit between dressing room and management, are both intangible factors to consider.
Naturally, Ward-Prowse’s standout attribute is his set-piece prowess. There have been several examples of managers preferring players to pull out of tackles rather than concede a foul in ‘Ward-Prowse territory.’
No player has scored more goals from outside the box across the last six Premier League seasons (18), with 15 of those being free kicks. The next-highest scorer from direct free kicks across that time has been James Maddison, with eight.
But viewing Ward-Prowse through that one lens overlooks his possessional qualities. He has made 183 progressive passes this season, which is nearly 100 more than the next-best Southampton player, Lavia (97). Interestingly, Ward-Prowse ranks in the top 13 per cent of midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues for key passes (0.92 per 90 minutes) and the top seven per cent for crosses into the box.
Only Bruno Fernandes, Kevin De Bruyne and Kieran Trippier have created more chances than Ward-Prowse’s 71 this season, while only Trippier has created more than his 40 from set pieces.
With Newcastle set to play an increased number of games next season due to European commitments, having a figure of dependability, set-play prowess and someone who habitually covers more distance than anyone else in the Premier League would be of undoubted benefit. Tactically, Howe’s 4-3-3 shape gives license to two attack-minded No 8s and accommodates the type of box-to-box, high-energy profile of midfielder Ward-Prowse is.