With just one win from their opening nine Premier League games this season, Southampton have reportedly been looking at managerial candidates to replace Mark Hughes.
According to the Express, former Monaco boss Leonardo Jardim has been identified as a possibility to take the St Mary’s hotseat if the board feel the need to make a change.
The 44-year-old Portuguese certainly has an impressive CV to show his potential suitors, but would he be a good fit at Saints?
2016/17 was by far his most fruitful season as a manager to date as he guided Monaco to their first Ligue 1 title for 17 years by an eight point margin over Paris Saint-Germain. They had held first position since January and been on an unbeaten run of 19 games until the season’s conclusion.
Further success came in other competitions to round off a truly superb campaign too. The semi-finals of the Champions League and the Coupe de France were reached, whilst the club were denied a second piece of silverware by PSG in the final of the Coupe de la Ligue.
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Monaco had seen the benefits of building one of the most exciting squads of recent times, but that was always going to attract clubs to many of their star players.
The next summer saw key men such as Bernardo Silva, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Benjamin Mendy, Valere Germain move on for big money and the supremely talented Kylian Mbappe join PSG on an initial loan deal before a huge permanent transfer.
Following the dismantling of that team, it proved almost impossible for Jardim and his side to reproduce the same results and he was recently sacked with the club languishing in Ligue 1’s bottom three. According to the Daily Mail, the club had sold £750m worth of talent in his time there.
It is perhaps other aspects of his management that would make him a good fit for Saints though; he has a reputation for promoting youth products to his first-teams and likes his side’s to attack the opposition .
This was particularly evident at Sporting Lisbon during Jardim’s year-long tenure. He led them to a finish of second place whilst working with a squad of players mainly from the academy. Players of note included current Saints Right-Back Cedric Soares, Eric Dier, Rui Patricio and William Carvalho.
His team’s are renowned for their attacking football and the statistics back this up. After managing in 406 matches to date across his career so far, he has 224 wins and an average of 1.88 points per game. 748 goals scored and 460 conceded also show his side’s on the front foot.
The players at St Mary’s currently may suit his playing style though. He has preferred a 4-4-2 double 6 (4-4-2 with two sitting midfielders and creativity from the wings) or 4-2-3-1 formation at previous clubs and has of course worked with Guido Carrillo in France.
This type of record would be needed by a new man at Saints after a few years without much entertainment for the fans, but it is also important to note that Jardim’s record has been made whilst managing a number of top clubs who dominate their respective leagues.
It is also worth thinking about whether the Saints job would be an attractive proposition to someone of his standing. After his success with Monaco, he will have plenty of more stable clubs looking at him where he could build something more sustainable.
Despite the appeal of the Premier League, he is unlikely to want to step into a potential relegation battle and will be wanting to see signs of promise before walking into somewhere else.
At this stage, it would be disrespectful to tout anyone for the job whilst Mark Hughes remains in charge. A promising draw with Bournemouth last weekend saw Saints put in a battling display and that could prove the turning point for their season.
If the team goes through the next run of fixtures up to Christmas without picking up many precious points though, the manager may need to be changed again to try and get a reaction and avoid another relegation battle.