Forget Potter & Corberán - Southampton need real imagination in next manager hunt to survive

To a certain extent, it’s hard not to respect Russell Martin’s faith in his own methods. Never once did he waver from his determination to play patient, possession-based football in the Premier League, even in the face of all evidence that it wasn’t working. If sheer bloody-mindedness earned points, Southampton would have been flying.

In the real world, the Saints were left will little choice but to move on from the man who took them back to the top flight through the play-offs. Southampton are dead last in the league, have collected just one point from their last six games, and were comprehensively crushed by Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. Morale seemed to be at rock bottom already, and won’t have been made any better by images of fans streaming out of St. Mary’s just half an hour into the match.

Martin forged a successful path for himself up from the lower echelons of the EFL to the Premier League, but his style simply didn’t work when his players were of a lower calibre than those they faced. They could keep the ball reasonably well – well, they couldn’t on Sunday, but Southampton still average 53% possession overall this season – but using it was a struggle. Dealing with the way the other team used it was even more problematic.

Even in earning promotion last season, Southampton showed us some vulnerabilities. As most teams slowly start to reduce the height of their defensive lines in order to stay tight against direct passes and counter-attacks, Martin kept his bullishly high and left space in behind – space which was ruthlessly and easily exploited by James Maddison within seconds of the kick-off.

Defensive positioning has never been Martin’s strong suit either, and while they were able to get away with the gaps and mistakes in the Championship when it was easier to dominate the ball, that lack of discipline was always liable to be exposed in the top flight. Last night, Dejan Kulusevksi simply sauntered though empty acres for Spurs’ third and Pape Matar Sarr was ushered through an open corridor between the centre-backs to score his goal. None of that was atypical, and the positive aspects of Martin’s management style never came close to outweighing the drawbacks.

So here we are – Martin has been sacked, probably out of necessity, and the next head coach will have one hell of a job on his hands. Southampton haven’t technically got the worst defence in the division (Wolves have shipped 40 goals already) but do have allowed more expected goals than any other team. They have a passable midfield and have created more chances than four other likely relegation candidates, but have scored just 11 goals, less than any other team.

The question is what kind of manager they need to make something of the mess they’re in. The defence has to be tightened up, but they also need to find ways to score goals despite having strikers who are struggling to find the net. A top-to-toe rethink may well be required.

The early betting favourites for the job seem to have been given lower odds solely because they’re among the more obvious names. Graham Potter is there, not necessarily because he’s a serious candidate but because he’s English and unemployed. Carlos Corberán from West Bromwich Albion has been mentioned, perhaps just because he’s one of few managers in higher rungs of the second tier whose candidacy sounds plausible enough. David Moyes lurks in the background, too. Credible links are at a bare minimum.

In any case, is Potter really the right man for in such dire straits? When his methods have worked in the past, that have taken time to take root – time Southampton don’t have – and there are serious questions over his capacity to get goals out of a team. Corberán is from the Marcelo Bielsa school of quick, direct, attacking football but his West Brom side have won just two of their last 15 games and his track record is decidedly patchy.

Moyes would likely get the defence tightened up and perhaps his more direct attacking set-up would work given that Southampton have some decent attacking pace with Cameron Archer, Tyler Dibling and Adam Armstrong and a respectable hold-up man in the form of Ben Brereton Díaz, so his name makes a certain degree of sense, but perhaps his methods wouldn’t mesh so well with a midfield which lacks the steel he usually asks for.

In any case, the question isn’t simply ‘what kind of coach could make something out of this squad right now’ but also whether they’re looking for someone who can help them survive the season or for a long-term solution, someone who they want to stick around even if they do go back down. Moyes could, conceivably, be the answer to the first question, but more imagination may be required for the second.

This is a team built to Martin’s specifications, especially in midfield, and that means that a manager who takes the best of his possession-heavy ideology while trimming away the defensive issues would probably be the ideal candidate. One could argue that Potter does fit that bill, but there are reasonable doubts over whether he would even take the job given that he seems keen to be picky over his next appointment. He reportedly turned down Ajax, and one wonders whether he would risk his reputation on a relegation dogfight.

The only journalist covering Southampton to have stuck their neck out with any kind of comment on what the next move might be, The Sun’s Jack Rosser, suggested that a foreign appointment was likely, but also claims that there was some admiration for young German manager Danny Röhl, who has been highly impressive at Sheffield Wednesday.

The 35-year-old had never managed before he was handed the reins at Hillsborough, but very rapidly turned a bad Wednesday team around, avoided relegation and now has the team in the top half of the table in his first full season. Along the way, he has shown tactical flexibility, tightened an initially leaky defence up and tuned up the team’s attacking and passing play. He remains largely unproven, but even if Röhl himself isn’t the right man, he provides a blueprint for the type of appointment Southampton should probably be looking for.

A little imagination may be required to find the right man. None of the obvious candidates seem like a perfect fit for the squad as it stands. There may also have to be an acceptance that the current defence is so bad, the midfield so specific in its qualities and the attack so short of cutting edge that even the perfect coach may not be able to dodge the drop.

The choice is perhaps between short-term pragmatism, hoping and praying for survival – in which case Moyes is probably your man – and taking a punt on a long-term project while accepting that the chances of sticking around in the Premier League may be very low. In that case, it could be that Southampton need to roll (or indeed Röhl) the dice a little harder.