Rubén Sellés' Saints are still Premier League material
The top division's most elbow-to-elbow relegation battle ever is still open, but a good team might drown in battle.
After defeat in the capital against relegation rivals West Ham United, Premier League survival and Southampton etch another game-week closer to divorce after a decade of top-flight football.
Rubén’s pre-predecessor, one of the more famous managerial graduates of the Red Bull group by the name of Ralph Hasenhüttl, rebuilt a one-win-in-fourteen Mark Hughes side from late 2018 onwards. The Austrian modeled the club around the intense game model from on-pitch counter-pressing as a chance-creating method to player recruitment of players specific to that style.
Months after reports of dressing room unrest, Hasenhüttl was dismissed, and Luton Town manager Nathan Jones was hired.
Keeping up appearances
Jones will go down in the Premier League’s history books as a remarkably strange commentator in post-match interviews, forgetting the forgettable 90 minutes even more quickly. Beyond his incredibly misplaced comments, the results of the team and the burned bridges with the fans urged the Southampton board into sacking their manager after just eight Premier League matches.
It was Jones’ public appearance - the unhinged comments, the nigh-on unprofessional demeanor, and the disconnect with the club’s fans, who repeatedly sang for him to be sacked, that sped up his sacking.
Rubén Sellés conducts himself differently. Professional presentation and attitude go a long way - from clothing to dealing with media outlets during a mentally draining relegation battle to maintaining relationships with your players.
In Southampton’s relegation battle, Sellés has regularly hammered down on the “every game is a must-win, no matter who we play” in many different wordings. It is a basic message, but the message builds standards and a culture to associate yourself with.
"It taught me a lot about how to behave in professional football, how to behave with the media and how to set high standards wherever I've been. It was a tough environment - we're talking about 15 years ago - but it showed people that I wasn't someone happy to just be comfortable in my own hometown.”
-Rubén Sellés
“Keeping up appearances” and style are obviously not prerequisites to effective management, but they do lay the foundations to build culture.
Taking over mid-season
Inheriting a first-team manager job during its most important times is a difficult task. There is little time for preparation - the coaching curriculum is assembled hastily, and the first training session is usually on the next day already. Most managers do not know the players they will manage, never mind the people behind them, and some haven’t been following their new club until a few days before they start.
Rubén Sellés, hired as Hasenhüttl’s first-team assistant in the summer of 2022 and then demoted to a first-team coach under Nathan Jones, had the privilege of being acquainted with the playing staff, the upstairs people, and all other people at Staplewood already.
It is an advantage Rubén has extrapolated towards his game model too. Southampton has switched between the 4-4-2 of Hasenhüttl and the 4-2-3-1 of Jones. That is common practice for new coaches coming in mid-season. It returns players to what they know and it aims to stimulate some muscle memory on different levels.
Generally, the 4-4-2 is also football’s “easiest” formation to play. Nearly all generations of players globally have previous experience playing it, and for spacing out of possession it is easy to recognize your position as your teammates serve as natural reference points.
Switching between the 4-4-2 and the 4-2-3-1 from game to game, the medium block of Southampton has been solid. In Sellés’ seven league games, they conceded four goals from open play (three of those in the 3-3 versus Spurs).
Another key to sudden mid-season success is the ability to identify a spine within your playing pool, who play together often to form relationships and habits on the pitch. It simplifies the training of the tactical process.
“When you think about the biggest teams in history, you have always seven or eight players in the line-up. That’s because the more time you work and play and stay together, the more you know the behaviour of team-mates and the more you understand what happens, especially when you’re under fatigue.”
-Rubén Sellés
Southampton has no mid-week games anymore, so can therefore focus fully on recovery and preparation for the weekend’s opponent until the end of the season.
Preventing a goal
Coming into a team that had conceded 40 goals in its first 22 Premier League games with just one clean sheet dating back to October, denying goals was the priority for any new manager coming in.
With just five games prior to his first game, returning to the 4-4-2 of Hasenhüttl followed the “taking-over-mid-season-handbook-101” perfectly.
Sellés’ medium-high block adheres to its principles of play quite well; it is a compact block, it shifts well from side to side and the presses are well-timed. Its pressing trap, being the place where Southampton aims to regain the ball, is out wide.
In the 4-4-2, this means the ball-near CF curves his press to push the ball out wide to the full-back, the main pressing trigger for Southampton. It is the moment they engage from a passive press to an active press. The outerior midfielder of the 4-4-2 jumps to press the opposition full-back, making sure he keeps the opponent’s ball-near midfielder in his cover shadow.
Center-forward Onuachu curves his run to push the ball out wide, preventing him from turning back and switching play. The dropping ball-near midfielder, Kovacic, is being tracked by his direct opponent Roméo Lavia (out of picture). Stuart Armstrong, the outerior midfielder, has a look to be aware of Kovacic’s movement. He knows the ball is about to go out wide.
Providing a cover shadow (space marked white) by being aware of his surroundings, Armstrong is able to mentally and physically totally commit to the ball and press it.
Southampton is very aggressive when the ball is ushered into this corner. They tilt their shape fully and go man-for-man to win the ball.
In the 4-2-3-1, which provides a 4-4-1-1 medium block, the principles of play remain, but the tactical situation is different. Here, the lone center-forward pushes the ball wide with an in-to-out run, curving to split the pitch in half, while the second forward (#10) picks up the deepest opposition midfielder.
In the high press, initiated by opposition goal-kicks, the center-forward presses the GK into one side, while the second forward presses the ball-side center-back. Southampton’s ball-side central midfielder then marks the lone opposition midfielder.
A key player as either the other center-forward in the 4-4-2 or in the 4-4-1-1 as the second striker is Carlos Alcaraz, who is a great presser, especially when coming from the blindside.
Southampton’s pressing traps are good at funneling play into stale positions, close to the opposition goal should the Saints regain the ball. It is a medium block worthy of Premier League quality. The red areas for Southampton are not in open play, but rather from set-pieces.
Set-piece nightmares
Apologies for the timing of those freeze frames. My program seems to not work so well lately.
Southampton set-piece problems are not rooted in some unfortunate mistakes, they are fundamental issues in the way they prepare for them. The flick-on to the far post is an easily exploitable corner routine against any team struggling to block runners.
Systemically, the setup is wrong too.
Imagining a corner came in from the GK’s left side, there are a few principles on defensive corner setups that Southampton does not follow.
First of all, the player on the post (#2) is usually the full-back depending on which side the corner is taken, in order to facilitate the reorganization phase, the phase if the first two contacts are not threatening and open play defense resumes. Southampton has used their striker Che Adams on the post.
More pressingly, the player setup on the first bank (5-4-6) is all wrong for Southampton. The first player, here #6, should be good in the air, and able to clear it efficiently too. It is usually the tallest player that is not a center-back. Southampton has used James Ward-Prowse in this position. Completing the first bank should be the center-backs at #5 and #4. They are usually the strongest players in the air, and the furthest player, #5 here, should be better at judging long balls. Ideally, that player is a little taller too. Players 5 and 6 position themselves level with the goalposts.
The quick attackers should be in the second bank or on the edge. These are #8 and #7. The four B’s are the blockers - they block the runners of the opposition from finding a path toward their goalmouth. These are the remaining players. They don’t need to have any aerial qualities (height, ability to judge flight of the ball, jumping ability). They need to be disciplined and pick up the opposition runs, allowing the first bank to clear the ball.
In the example above, many of these principles are not followed, as with most of Southampton’s defensive set-pieces this season.
In today’s game versus West Ham United, their defensive indirect free-kicks also were easily exploited. Southampton is set in a high line, and puts extra responsibility on the goalkeeper should the offside trap fail.
Even before the ball is launched, the line is also disorganized - Southampton’s players are staggered and the players at the back of the bank are playing everyone onside.
Usually, a good communicator would be further back - not only to correct the line height (they have the best view), but also to pick up the blindside runners in the back.
Southampton does none of that, and Aguerd has all the space to unopposedly catch onto the flight of the ball and head home.
Scoring a goal
At the other end, Southampton is a tad bit dry for goals. Their top scorer with seven Premier League goals is none other than the legendary James Ward-Prowse.
Ward-Prowse’s free-kicks are an excellent source of goals, and in a relegation-threatened team these goals are so crucial, but it is almost Southampton’s only source.
Under Sellés, however, Southampton has approached build-up play a bit differently than usual.
Building with a GK+4-2 sub-structure, the Saints of Sellés try to emulate De Zerbi’s Brighton & Hove Albion in their own way. The deep full-backs and central midfielders on the height of the 18-yard box attract high pressure from the opposition.
To entice and bait the opposition into pressing and therefore committing their team higher, Southampton start their goal-kicks from one of the center-backs who passes it to the goalkeeper. It is a tactic that allows the goalkeeper to “start” the goal-kick with either side to go to as the opposition cannot close off one half of the pitch.
What follows is the goalkeeper passing it to one of the center-backs, who looks to launch it long onto the last line. The last line is occupied by two wingers and one striker, with one second striker (preferably Alcaraz) dropping off to stagger the pitch for second balls. It is a 3+1/4 situation that Southampton then tries to attack from around the halfway line.
In Southampton’s most recent game though, Sellés and his players have evolved this idea even better.
By moving the outerior midfielders infield into the half-spaces, they could exploit West Ham’s 4-1-4-1 formation quite well. The vertically compact central midfielders enticed more pressure from West Ham, which left Southampton in a good place when they progressed the ball through the lines of West Ham.
It was a game-specific tactic that worked well, despite Southampton never quite finding the final pass due to stale winger movement and a lack of quality on the wings.
Considering the lack of open-play goal threat from players like Theo Walcott, Stuart Armstrong, and Kamaldeen Sulemana, it’s worth provoking fouls around the box for James Ward-Prowse to have a go from.
Another strategy Southampton should explore is their full-backs. Walker-Peters and Perraud have licenses to maraud forwards, supporting their wingers with overlaps in the final third. Southampton should work on using them for late arrivals, possibly in the box, to score cutbacks from. In this pattern of play, the full-back would arrive late in the final phase of the attack on the far-side.
The tragedy of Roméo and… Rubén
Despite the very challenging balance between training a team efficiently and getting results in a relegation scrap, Southampton has a good manager in Rubén Sellés but their crop of players is just as exciting. Roméo Lavia, the 19-year-old central midfielder has been a spark of light since August during a dim season for the Saints. He possesses amazing awareness of what is happening around him, and is in total control of his body - both are special traits to have at his unseasoned age.
The talented players, think of Armel Bella-Kotchap, Kyle Walker-Peters, Carlos Alcaraz, Roméo Lavia, and James Ward-Prowse, are all Premier League quality, and so is their manager Rubén Sellés.
Keeping their heads above water seems a Sisyphean task now, especially with the current top three of the Premier League still to play.
But should they stay up, they would be a great mid-table side for next season. Intense, in-your-face, with quality players, and a well-drilled medium block that dares to press high too.
Premier League survival for Southampton will depend on a few aspects. Can they fix their issues on the defensive set-pieces, while keeping the medium block as effective as it is, and can they find more goals from those 3v4 situations or create more free-kicks for Ward-Prowse?
This piece was written by Twitter user @guillaume_0823, Movements & Sports Science student, UEFA C-licensed coach and Level 1 PFSA Opposition Analyst. Disagreements, answers and questions can be directed to their Twitter profile.
Man Utd fan here. Good analysis of Sellés’ Saints, opened my eyes to their good pressing structure but deficient set-piece setup. Nice article Guillaume!