Southampton: Should the Saints switch tactics to a three-man midfield?

Mark Hughes’ men have mainly operated with two in the middle of midfield this season so far, though with only one win in their opening eight games of the current Premier League campaign, is it time to change tactics in order to reap more success?

The Saints have conceded 14 goals in these fixtures, and despite having scored six, they need to find a way of stopping teams to breach their goal – having the fourtho-worst goal difference at this stage of the season is of some concern and the decision to switch the system up is of much essence.

The 3-5-2 has been Hughes’ second choice when not operating the much-loved 4-4-2, however it really does not seem to fit, giving how it was ditched halfway through Southampton’s season-opener against Burnley and utilised against Chelsea this former weekend – both games the Saints did not score in, and conceded three against the latter.

In defence of the manager, against Liverpool away the three in-the-middle was used to try and stop the Merseyside club’s flow – however opting to play Matt Targett as a left-winger, who is a left-back by trade, and Shane Long, a striker with a poor scoring record did not do the system any justice in terms of judging its effectiveness.

So why could switching to a three-man midfield still be effective for the Saints despite falling short against Liverpool?

Well for one, it would certainly add more grit to the midfield that the Saints currently lack. Oriol Romeu, who was formerly Player of the Season was utilised very well as an anchor man in the 2016/17 campaign – it helped to soak up pressure from the opposition to protect the back four, as well as help maintain possession to stop the opposition from creating chances.

In that season, the Saints kept 14 clean sheets, and only conceded 48 goals, however finished 8th in the Premier League, mostly operating a 4-3-3 or 4-3-1-2. In comparison and doing some quick maths this campaign, Hughes’ men are on track to keep just below ten clean sheets, and concede around 66 goals – that’s if they were to concede at 1.75 per game rate they currently have (stats via Premier League site).

Without taking goals scored into consideration, that is an extra four or five points straight away, and though it might not sound like a lot – it could very much make the difference come the end of the season say if thr Saints were to be in a relegation dog fight.

It could be heavily argued that theses stats are a little unfair, as the 2016/17 campaign could be the influence of former defender Virgil van Dijk, and though that would be correct, the Dutchman was out for half of the campaign with an injury – and therefore the introduction of the mentioned Romeu will still help in dropping the concede rate immensely.

With this, Saints have other midfield options in James Ward-Prowse and Stuart Armstrong that would operate effectively in a three-man midfield as they both have the ability to run a game with their passing and possession ability – not to mention the former’s dead-ball ability that makes the Saints deadly on set-pieces.

The main point though is about maintaining possession of the ball, and therefore limiting the opposition to creating chances that could hurt Southampton’s fragile defence – Saints have averaged about 46.9% across this campaign so far, though have seen much more success in the league when this figure has been much higher, nearer the 55% mark (stats via whoscored.com).

Not to mention, against Chelsea this figure was even lower at about 35%, and therefore allowed the London side to control the game too much, which from now on must change. It may not be the most attractive football to play a possession based-game, however is a change that could make the difference in achieving results for the Saints.