Season Review 2023/24
After 49 games, 2023/24 turned out to be a triumph for Russball, and it has to be said that there weren’t many of us confident of such a swift return to the top flight. My way or the highway seemed to be Russell’s attitude in public, although I believe there were tweaks to the system mid-stream, with the ball being hit forward earlier and more often than back in August.
We began with back-to-back away wins thanks to late goals by Adams at Sheffield and Plymouth, the former thanks to an assist from Ward-Prowse – remember him? In between came a fortuitous home draw with Norwich and Carabao Cup capitulation at Gillingham, Perraud getting the blame for being unable to play out of position as he was promptly packed off to France. The Gillingham game was also the last we expected to see of McCarthy in a Southampton shirt as Lumley arrived and was to be named on the bench for every League game thereafter, plus he played in four F.A. Cup ties. How wrong we could be!
A home win was followed by heavy defeat at Sunderland that opened the flood gates for four successive losses that had some thinking about who was going to replace Manager Martin, but then the team got back to winning ways with the first of their wins against Leeds. Incredibly, they then managed to forget how to lose in a long unbeaten run that lasted until February. Defeats again came in a clutch as we lost four out of five, including a cup tie at Anfield. What really put paid to a top two finish were against the run of play April defeats at Ipswich and Cardiff, while a thrashing at Leicester suggested that Bazunu’s absence through injury and McCarthy’s presence instead were serious setbacks, and things were no better after an unexpected defeat by Stoke to end the regular home season.
There was still one more game before the play-offs, at Leeds where McCarthy and his defence rolled up their sleeves again for a morale-boosting win, followed by a clean sheet at West Brom and a convincing win in the home leg, to set up that third successful meeting with Leeds, this time at Wembley!
Saints had just one player (Walker-Peters) in the PFA’s Championship team of the year, so somehow they managed to find better centre backs than Harwood-Bellis and Bednarek. It’s also a surprise that the peer group failed to recognise Downes’ contribution while it must have felt that Adam Armstrong’s eventual goal-plus-assist total of 37 was eclipsed by Blackburn’s Szmodics’ similar figure as it included 33 goals.
Looking forward, we now have Harwood-Bellis on staff but it remains to be seen whether our loaned out players to European top tier teams (Bella-Kotchap at PSV Eindhoven, Alacaraz at Juventus and Perraud at Nice) return to have another crack at the Premier League. I’d have thought acquiring a goalkeeper should be the priority as Burnley, Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest (until the end of the winter transfer window, anyway) showed last year that it’s virtually impossible for a smaller club to survive without decent talent between the sticks. We shall miss Jason Wilcox’s recruitment skills, but “what will be, will be” – enjoy the close season while it lasts.
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