Southampton are back in the top-flight at the first time of asking. Their season culminating in a 1-0 victory over the much-fancied Leeds United in the Championship play-off final.
During their successful promotion campaign, Russell Martin’s side created some new club records. For example, over a period of six months, an in-form Saints team went on an unbeaten run of 22 league games. That can be extended to 25 if you include all competitions.
In this article, guest writer FPL Bluebird assesses Martin’s management style, preferred tactics and openness with the press, while in future pieces, their attacking and defensive qualities will be analysed.
To provide a fans’ view, we’ve got insight from Fantasy Football Scout user The Naga Khan.
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WHAT TACTICS DO SOUTHAMPTON PLAY UNDER MARTIN?
Under the astute management of Russell Martin, the south coast team have played a possession-based game. Martin was already renowned for a fluent, possession-based approach before he took the helm at St Mary’s. He implemented that same philosophy which paid immediate dividends.
Martin’s preferred formation is a 4-3-3 which was utilised on 34 occasions last season. A system which allowed them to dominate their opponents by playing the ball from the back. Right-back Kyle Walker-Peters (£4.5m) was asked to regularly invert into central midfield, creating a box of four. Goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu (£4.5m) became a ball-playing custodian and every player was expected to be comfortable on the ball. At the end of the season, to combat the attacking threat posed by Leeds United, Martin deployed a 3-5-2 formation.
Championship records started to tumble on the opening day of the season. Southampton completed 477 first-half passes at Sheffield Wednesday and completed 931 successful passes in total. That equated to 79.9% possession. Tellingly, a rejuvenated Saints team topped the Championship by a considerable margin in the number of 10+ pass sequences during the season (1,035).
Their new-found style propelled the St Mary’s team to the top of the Championship possession statistics for the 2023/24 campaign (66.1%). Remarkably, Southampton averaged the highest possession percentage in Europe’s top five leagues last season.
“Keep ball. We had a higher possession rate than Man City last season, mostly playing in front of the opposition defence rather than getting in behind. However, Stuart Armstrong is a loss and somebody will need to take the mantle of finding the key pass or driving forward between the lines.” – The Naga Khan
Tireless off-the-ball running is a feature of Southampton’s game. They created the most shot-ending high turnovers in the Championship (82) last season.
Although a 4-3-3 was the go-to-formation, Martin did adapt to needs. He utilised five other formations during the season. Most notably, for the last league fixture, play-off semi-final and final he switched from 4-3-3 to either a 3-5-2 or a 3-4-2-1.
In a recent interview, he suggested to the press that the team mustn’t lose its identity and what brought them great success in the last campaign. It appears that philosophy will continue.
“It’s illogical to me that we would get to the Premier League and then through fear or lack of belief we would then do something else. There are going to be games when we play against amazing opposition and maybe look a bit different but we won’t go away to say Man City or Liverpool and set up to camp, we just won’t do it.
We have to accept sometimes we’ll get beat but then other times we’ll have beautiful moments and games and results people don’t expect, maybe we’ll surprise some people.” – Russell Martin
Martin’s philosophy has always been built around controlling matches with the ball. Undoubtedly, Southampton will find it more of a challenge this season as they step up a level. It will be fascinating to see if Martin shows faith in his tried and tested 4-3-3 formation, or will he adapt more often to meet the bigger challenges that lie ahead?
“If you had asked me this two thirds of the way through last season I would have said he is totally rigid in his system. That changed in the play-offs though when we saw some real flexibility in his set-up.
“I think he will be fairly pragmatic to start with, respecting the vast difference in quality of Premier League teams but his system will adapt, depending on in game tactics and personnel.
“The signs are that Martin will move to three centre backs, two wings backs, a box four in the middle and a central striker. This is what we have generally seen in pre-season so far.” – The Naga Khan
DOES MARTIN LIKE A SETTLED SIDE OR WILL HE ROTATE?
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