The biggest threat to a club in the top tier of the English league is relegation. When Southampton began this season, they were coming off an excellent season last for the few years running. The club made an ambitious move by still removing Claude Puel and putting Pellegrino in charge.
The new boss had to deal with the drama of Virgil Van Dijk and was never able to get the team together. He was finally sacked last month with Mark Hughes put in charge. The new boss has so far been unable to get his team out with the Saints still stuck at 18th. This is what Hughes had to say.
“We will have to wait until the rest of the season to see if that’s a significant point one way or the other,” said Hughes, whose side are four points behind Swansea – who they play in Wales in the penultimate match of the season.
“But given the fact we haven’t been able to pick up any points in recent weeks, clearly it is positive and we must take it as a positive.
“The importance of taking something out of the game shouldn’t be underestimated, I don’t think. But we are going to get to a point where we are just going to have to throw everything at it.
“Maybe tonight wasn’t the game for that but certainly that is going to be in my mindset that we are going to have to get maximum points. We are going to have to take more risks in the games coming up and that’s where we find ourselves, unfortunately.
“We didn’t come here with the intention to play for a draw, we were going to be aggressive if we were allowed to be. Performance-wise I don’t think we got anywhere near the level we did against Arsenal or Chelsea, but we didn’t get any points out of those games.
“There was a little bit of apprehension in our play, which is understandable to an extent as we knew we needed something out of the game.”
Despite relegation threats hanging over them, they have been linked with the signing of Anthony Limbombe. The 23-year-old Belgian winger can play on either wing but predominantly operates from the left wing. He has made 38 appearances this season scoring 6 goals and making 7 assists.
This means that he is still an unproven quantity in England and with Southampton having a relegation threat hanging over them, they should work on that rather than buying new players.
