Southampton are in the midst of their worst losing run of the 21st century yet remain fifth in the Premier League – a situation Ronald Koeman would have snapped your hand off for at the start of the campaign.
The Saints’ impressive start to the campaign made a mockery of those predicting a campaign of woe in the wake of the unparalleled summer talent drain from St Mary’s.
However, Southampton’s best-ever top-flight start has gone off kilter in recent weeks and they enter Saturday’s match against Everton looking to end a run of five successive defeats in all competitions.
It makes Roberto Martínez wary of a backlash, with the Blues manager judging them on this season’s displays rather than their recent defeats – a wise assessment in Koeman’s view.
“Always you have to look until now,” Koeman said. “If somebody said to me in the pre-season ‘after the middle of December you are the fifth in the list’, I would have said ‘give me the paper and I will sign it now’.
“I understand the defeats because that’s always the difference with players. They need confidence and sometimes now you see that. I know my players, how they can play football, and it’s difficult because of maybe freshness, maybe about more changes in the team.
“Confidence you can show them, you can tell them. The answer is always on the pitch Saturday at 3 o’clock and then you have to show it. There are always ways to lose a game but not how we lost last Tuesday.”
That defeat to Sheffield United was comfortably the worst of Koeman’s reign, given the manner in which they bombed out of the Capital One Cup to League One opposition.
“I was very disappointed but it is all the past and sometimes that’s the nicest part in football,” the Dutchman said about the 1-0 loss. “You get always the next game and can change a lot of things.
“Looking back to last Tuesday, we have to change our teamwork, our belief, our spirit and that’s the key in my opinion for the Saturday game.”
Koeman will also have to make changes himself as injury and suspension has decimated the Saints squad.
Morgan Schneiderlin, Victor Wanyama and Florin Gardos are all banned for the visit of Everton, while long-term absentees Jay Rodriguez, Jack Cork and Sam Gallagher are joined on the sidelines by Jake Hesketh and Dusan Tadic.
Furthermore, Steven Davis and Graziano Pellè are doubts for a match which Koeman will have to blood in some of Southampton’s young talents.
“The problem for Tadic is tiredness built up about playing a lot,” he said. “That’s the difference between outside and playing in the Premier League. These are players who normally need a break and they don’t have a break – a little bit the same for Steven Davis and the same for Graziano Pellè.
“We have to understand that we have more international players than the club ever had in the past and you have to get used to that problem.
“That is in my opinion one of the difficulties for us and one of the problems. It’s a new situation. With a lot of changes in the team that’s part of football and it’s a little bit the problem.”