Saints legend Matt Le Tissier believes there needs to be significant strengthening to the squad if they are able to balance and compete in both the league and Europe next season.
Ronald Koeman’s first season in charge of Saints ended in success following Europa League qualification and a seventh place finish in the Premier League.
There were many people that were happy to put money on Southampton to be relegated at the start of the season following some high profile stars leaving along with the manager Mauricio Pochettino.
Instead the selling of much of the previous season’s core has seen the rebuild of the squad enabling the side to gain serious momentum and consistency over the past season pushing for the European places.
After more success, Nathaniel Clyne and Morgan Schneiderlin are yet again attracting interest from the bigger clubs in the Premier League and Le Tiss believes that strengthening will be key.
He told Sky Sports, “We’ve seen plenty of examples of where clubs have gone into the Europa League and perhaps their league form has suffered a little bit because of the amount of games they were playing.
“We might lose Morgan Schneiderlin or Nathaniel Clyne, possibly, but if we do we’ve proven in the past we can go out and replace properly.
“In Morgan’s case he’s been quoted saying if a Champions League club came in then he would want to go that way, and you can’t blame the boy for that. But it would be nice if we could keep hold of everyone and challenge for Europe again next season.”
As far as players coming in are concerned, Le Tissier insists that Jay Rodriguez will be like a fresh player following a return from a lengthy injury keeping him out of action for the past year.
“Our top scorer from last season in Jay Rodriguez, we’ll have him as a new signing during the summer – he’ll come back ready for the start of the season so that will be a bonus.
“Then you’re perhaps looking in the centre-back region. If we lose Morgan you’re looking at another holding mifielder in there, and possibly one more centre forward if you’re going to go through a Europa League campaign as well.”
Koeman came in and took over a squad of players that were left behind and replaced the outgoings with cheaper and overall better options who have really shown their worth this season.
Saints fans would’ve been Arsenal fans just for one day last Saturday as their win against Aston Villa in the FA Cup Final meant that Southampton were able to qualify for next seasons Europa League following a rule change, meaning that the running up in the cup final was no longer able to qualify for Europe.
If it wasn’t for a late dip in form towards the back end of the season then Saints could have been welcoming Champions League football for the first time as for most of the season they were on the heels of Arsenal and Manchester United for the final two places.
The key for Southampton in the summer is to make sure they recruit more than they let go as squad rotation and strength in depth is going to be more important than anything else during next season.
