Southampton had money to spend in January 2018, and investment was necessary. With the club dwindling towards relegation, change was required.
Results had been poor for some time. The style of play was progressively leaving Saints fans walking away from stadiums despondent, with their hopes of a positive campaign quickly evaporating.
The hasty decision to sack Claude Puel and replace him with Mauricio Pellegrino was bemoaned by many, both inside and outside of the Southampton supporter-base. Saints had swapped a safe if unspectacular coach with a pragmatic outlook for one who had initially represented fresh ideas and inclusiveness: a man who could unify an increasingly-fragmented dressing room with its previously-adoring faithful.
But Southampton dodged a bullet with Puel only to land themselves in the firing line with Pellegrino, whose ill-advised decisions – in the technical area, on the training pitch and in transfer negotiations – are still being amended by those currently at the club.
The warning signs were clear with Pellegrino. For all his hard work at Deportivo Alaves the year before, and also his success at Leganes since leaving St Mary’s, it was very clear, very quickly, that his tenure on English soil would not bear fruit.
By November, it had become pertinent to several Southampton supporters that the board had to wield the axe; no sense of direction appeared, as players wandered aimlessly, the manager ran out of ideas four months into the season, and fans grew disgruntled by a lack of excitement.
Nevertheless, the hierarchy added to their catalogue of errors and stuck by Pellegrino. In truth, their show of faith – blind faith, for that matter – appeared more out of principle than justification: they had already booted one manager out of the door, and to dismiss his successor so soon after making such a widely-maligned decision was unthinkable.
Fine margins define football, though, and there was no room for error. Unfortunately, the board that had once been heralded for astute business in the transfer market became senseless.
Les Reed and Ralph Krueger made ill-informed decisions that have left Southampton’s new regime to clean up the mess they left behind. The most damaging of them all? Affording one of the club’s worst-ever managers the opportunity to spend a record-breaking sum of money on one player – any player at all – of his choice.
Just what was needed in the January transfer window of that season remains pertinent. Southampton were leaky at the back, struggling down the flanks, bereft of creativity, fluffing their lines in front of goal and playing with no cohesion whatsoever. It would have taken more than a couple of signings to remedy such deficiencies, but a competent manager would have been as good a start as any.
The board honed in on strengthening the attack. Following Virgil van Dijk’s move to Liverpool for £75 million, it seemed clear that instead of working to patch up the enormous void left by the Dutchman’s departure until the end of the season, at the very least, an onus would be placed upon bolstering Pellegrino’s options in the final third. Saints were indeed toothless up top, but their defensive performances hardly inspired confidence, either.
And so the work began. Southampton had been expected to move for dynamic forwards to inject some much-needed pace and guile to their front-line; it, therefore, made sense that a move for Spartak Moscow’s ever-impressive winger Quincy Promes was on the cards.
Club-record bids were reportedly rejected as the Russian club held onto their prized asset in the final days of the window. Fast forward less than two years, he is now an Ajax player, having joined the Dutch giants for a meagre sum worth just over £10 million.
Nevertheless, Southampton would not go without, as Guido Carrillo came through the door. AS Monaco’s fourth-choice striker signed for £19 million, making him the club’s most-expensive ever acquisition in its history, trumping the £18 million that had been spent on Mario Lemina just months before.
Carrillo worked with Pellegrino at Estudiantes and thrived in his homeland of Argentina. At Monaco, though, he flattered to deceive, turning in strong performances against lower-level French clubs but scarcely being depended on by Leonardo Jardim, who was only too willing to accept a sizable offer from Southampton.
The rationale behind the signing was obvious but foolish. Carrillo was a favourite of Pellegrino – the striker later described him as a ‘master’ – and Saints panicked, ceding their stronghold over transfer dealings to succumb to a manager’s frankly ridiculous demand.
Instead of trusting in their own strategies in the market, Southampton’s board surrendered to Pellegrino and supplied him with the power to unintentionally but rather predictably inflict financial restrictions on the club for years beyond his stay.
Carrillo was never noticeably bad for Saints, but he was hardly a standout performer. He made just 10 appearances during his only half-season in Southampton colours and was left out in the cold by Mark Hughes upon his arrival.
Ultimately, while he was wholly underwhelming, Carrillo was a victim of circumstance: he wasn’t to know that the manager with whom he uprooted his career to reunite would be dismissed only months after he touched down in a different country.
Southampton had no established system nor style of play under Pellegrino, and it was more of the same under Mark Hughes despite his initially stabilising influence. Carrillo has never acclimatised to the Premier League, and as such, has been forced to depart on loan in an attempt to resurrect his career at the age of 28.
Last season, he played for Leganes – again under Pellegrino’s tutelage – and scored six goals. This season, he will play there again, having been snapped up on another loan deal after being deemed surplus to requirements at St Mary’s under Ralph Hasenhuttl.
It would be more suitable to sell Carrillo outright, without a doubt, but such was the nature of the deal that the club’s previous board unintelligently agreed, the possibility of recouping anything even remotely close to the £19 million that was spent on his signing is predicated on how he performs at Leganes.
Under Gao Jisheng’s management, Southampton will need to sell to buy. Rightly or wrongly, this seems to be the case, and Hasenhuttl is tasked with ensuring that there is a healthy flow of players coming in and going out.
But his job is made all the more difficult by the mistakes made in the past, and none stand out more than Carrillo’s acquisition.
At £19 million, with not one goal to his name in a Southampton shirt, and with little sign of any true resale value, the Argentine forward must surely go down as the club’s worst-ever bit of business, even though he is not chiefly responsible.
