Southampton FC's instant Premier League return ‘no guarantee’
A change in Saints' strategy hasn't worked, according to a football finance expert
A return to the Premier League at the first attempt next season is ‘no guarantee’ according to a Football Finance expert.
Kieran Maguire, who teaches the subject at the University of Liverpool, says the club’s change of strategy came with a risk.
“Southampton went down the route of trying to recruit a large number of young players, who they felt would adapt to the Premier League,” Maguire said, “It’s not worked out.”
Saints will finish the season bottom after a disrupted season in which they sacked both Ralph Hasenhüttl and Nathan Jones.
Maguire feels Saints will need to move players on, with players such as defender Armel Bella-Kotchap and midfielder Romeo Lavia linked with moves away from St. Marys.
“You’ve only got to look at other club’s who’ve been relegated, there’s no guarantee of returning to the Premier League,” Maguire said, “If you look at the four clubs in the (Championship) play-offs this season, Middlesbrough, Luton, Coventry (and Sunderland), none of them have been in the Premier League in recent years, and that’s made it that much more difficult (to get promoted).”
However, it’s not all doom-and-gloom in the Championship next season, as Maguire says there can also be a “bounce-back opportunity”, with Burnley, this years EFL Championship winners, proving that.
“It will be tricky, there will be a period of readjustment, sometimes it can act as a bounce-back opportunity, as we’ve in the case of Burnley, who’ve not only won the EFL Championship, they’ve won it playing amazing football as well.”