Southampton finished dead last in the Premier League last season, as they had a squad that was woefully underprepared for the rigors of the English top flight.
It took until November for the coach they started the season with, Russell Martin, to win his first game in the Premier League, and he was promptly dismissed about a month later after a 5-0 trouncing to eventual 17th-placed side Tottenham Hotspur.
In his place, Southampton hired one of the most respected managers in the Serie A mid-table, Ivan Juric. Famous for bringing up Crotone to Serie A and steadying uneven ships in Hellas Verona and Torino in relatively competitive table positions, Juric was brought in to stabilize Southampton and get them out of trouble while potentially unearthing some gems in the squad.
He did absolutely none of that. Like Martin, Juric led the Saints straight to the bottom, and the club showed no improvement at all from where they were. And like Martin, Juric sealed his fate with a tough loss to Tottenham, as Southampton became the earliest relegated team in the history of the Premier League.
Ivan Juric is a step down for his new club
Yet despite failing miserably in his last two jobs with Southampton and Roma - the latter being his biggest opportunity to date - Juric is going to fall upwards. Per Fabrizio Romano and Matteo Moretto, Italian football's most famous Megadeth fan will be headed back to the country to manage Atalanta, replacing club legend Gian Piero Gasperini, who, ironically enough, is headed to Roma himself.
Stylistically, Juric is similar to Gasperini in his "death metal" approach, and he could potentially have success at Atalanta, who are a smaller side regularly punching above their weight. That is usually Juric's speciality in Serie A. But Atalanta, despite their small budget, have expectations similar to Roma, and at a big Italian club and with a big opportunity at a historic Premier League side, Juric totally failed.
For Southampton fans and even fans of Calcio who are familiar with Juric's more positive exploits in the league, this is a puzzling hire. Gasperini to Juric is a massive step down, and after the half-season he had in England, Juric shouldn't be anywhere near the radar of a Champions League-level club that recently went toe-to-toe with the mighty Real Madrid.
Juric failed upwards, there's no two ways about it. He was an abject failure for the Saints, and now he's getting to manage some of the best players in European football like Charles De Ketelaere, Mateo Retegui, Ederson, Giorgio Scalvini, and Ademola Lookman.