Ankersen’s common absence from matches, and certainly the coaching floor over latest months, has already been elevating inner eyebrows.
Southampton had wanted to win to retain any flicker of hope – one thing they haven’t managed for greater than two months – and second-half targets by Carlos Vinicius and Aleksandar Mitrovic duly made relegation official and consolidated Fulham’s place among the many upwardly cellular top-10 golf equipment that Saints as soon as had been.
Ankersen and chairman Henrik Kraft are anticipated to entrance as much as media as soon as the season ends and, with the billionaire backing of majority proprietor Dragon Solak and a promoting spree from the likes of James Ward-Prowse, Romeo Lavia, Armel Bella-Kotchap and Kyle Walker-Peters that ought to elevate greater than £100 million, could have the assets to bounce again.
Whether or not they’ll spend that cash effectively is extra debatable and there was what felt like a pointed comment from the newest supervisor, Ruben Selles, within the post-match press convention. “Change shouldn’t be at all times the perfect if you wish to construct a high-performance surroundings,” he stated.
Jason Wilcox will arrive shortly as the brand new director of soccer following the announcement that Matt Crocker is leaving his director of soccer operations position.
Matt Hale will even depart as academy director. Assistant academy director Edd Vahid departed final August. Head of senior recruitment Joe Shields left in January. Head of youth recruitment Dan Rice will even depart on the finish of the season. Toby Steele, the managing director, will depart later this yr. David Thomas, the business director left in February and the robust expectation is that chief govt Martin Semmens and Selles will all even be transferring on.
Scouts and information analysts more and more now have contracts straight with Sport Republic, who additionally personal the Turkish membership Goztepe SK, quite than Southampton.
There have been already doubts about supervisor Ralph Hasenhuttl from earlier than final summer time however, with the mid-season window of a World Cup, the choice was taken to first change the encircling teaching employees. Hasenhuttl’s strengths had been at all times in his tactical preparation and work on the coaching floor quite than man-management and the arrival of the personable Selles as ‘first-team lead coach’ went down properly with the gamers. The issue was that the switch technique – with Hasenhuttl’s affect – was so flawed. “Insane” is one insider’s blunt description of the coverage. Southampton have a protracted custom of creating younger gamers however, at their finest, it was at all times nurtured with skilled and extremely valued leaders. That important stability grew to become lopsided in desire for youthful high quality and its main potential promote on worth.
Two particular errors had been important. First, the choice to grant Oriel Romeu – nonetheless solely 30 and the glue that so usually held the staff collectively – his desired switch to Girona with out first signing a comparable substitute. One other dressing-room chief, Jan Bednarek, was shipped off to Aston Villa after falling out of favour with Hasenhuttl however with out including a substitute like Ben Mee or Conor Coady. It left Southampton beginning the season with a staff that, within the phrases of 1 member of employees, was “principally Prowsey (James Ward-Prowse), Theo and a bunch of kids”.
