Revered St. Mary's great Matt Le Tissier has voiced his unhappiness over the newer transfer practices implemented by the board which are thinning down the roster's on-field competitiveness.
Today's rapid Damion Downs progress has sent a wave of enthusiasm among the Southampton fans who have seen their signing's patience continuously tested to the limit. There is every chance this healthy wait can be worth it but even the Downs capture fails to speak volumes about sending an ambitious statement to the Premier League clubs.
And this has more to do with Downs' meagre top-flight experience rather than the Saints' horrible one from just over a month ago. Plus, that comes when the already-arrived Quarshie hasn't done much to note in the top five European leagues either.
Not to underrate these emerging wonderkids but doesn't this feel alienated from the typical transfer activities we saw at St. Mary's with roughly the same window budgets. Consequently, someone had to raise this weird strategy downgrade and the most respected figure at the club has come forward to call out this ideology shift on the board's part.
Saints have stopped trusting in household European names
As quoted by the Daily Echo, St. Mary's revered star Matt Le Tissier gave his opinion in this regard: "I feel like the last few years the recruitment side of things hasn't been to the standard we were used to for the years before that."
Considering only this decade, Southampton signed a bunch of stars like Kyle Walker-Peters, Mohammed Salisu and Romain Perraud among others who were already starring for some mid-table top-tier clubs at the bare minimum. That's why they never looked out of touch in any competition Saints played irrespective of the opponent on the day.
Wins as well as defeats are two sides of the coin whose balance can't be changed overnight but the sharp dip in competitiveness is only shifting the sporting balance away from Southampton's favour.
One, which can bring the club's English stature of a Huddersfield Town-like fallen Championship heavyweights instead of a Premier League's "team on the rise" if further neglect continues throughout this decade.