Southampton’s 11-year stay in the Premier League came to an end on Saturday as a 2-0 defeat to Fulham made them the first team to be relegated in the 2022/23 season.
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Southampton had to win the match to keep their hopes of staying up alive, but second-half goals from Carlos Vinicius and Aleksandar Mitrovic sent down the home team to the Championship.
The result at St Mary’s Stadium leaves Saints bottom of the table, as they had been for 138 days this season, on 24 points, eight from safety with only two matches remaining.
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 |
Everton
EVE
|
38 | -23 | 36 |
| 18 |
Leicester City
LEI
|
38 | -17 | 34 |
| 19 |
Leeds United
LEE
|
38 | -30 | 31 |
| 20 |
Southampton
SOU
|
38 | -37 | 25 |
The club started the season with Ralph Hasenhuttl as manager, then changed him for Nathan Jones.
But Jones lasted little more than eight matches, winning only one, before Ruben Selles, Hasenhuttl’s assistant, took over but could not generate the required success.
Saints' managerial records 2022/23
| Manager | P | W | D | L |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hasenhuttl | 14 | 3 | 3 | 8 |
| Jones | 8 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| Selles | 14 | 2 | 3 | 8 |
See: Who can be relegated from the Premier League?
“It’s a difficult moment for the club,” a disappointed Southampton captain James Ward-Prowse told the club's official website. “It’s something, in all honesty, we’ve been fearing for a little while.
"For the last couple of years we’ve not been performing at the level I believe we should be and I think this season’s caught up with us.
“It’s tough, it’s not a nice moment, for any player with any experience but especially with the young squad we’ve got. A difficult moment now but hopefully one everybody will learn from and it’s a time for everybody to go away now, have a think about what they’ve done over the season.
“Whether we as a club have done that well enough over the course of the season, I don’t think we have and that’s why we are where we are right now.
“I feel for [the fans] because they don’t deserve to see what we’ve produced this season and that’s the sad thing.
“There’s a way to lose games and there’s a way to fail in sport. The way we’ve done it this year, that’s the disappointing thing. We didn’t really go down with a fight and given everything we can."
A statement from the Southampton owners Sport Republic said: "We must now reflect on the lessons to be learned from this season and start preparing for the challenges ahead of us in the Championship. Our goal is to return to the Premier League as soon as possible and ensure that we stay there.
"At the same time, we will continue to focus on the long-term development of the club, both on and off the pitch, to ensure its sustainability at the highest level.
"We understand that significant improvement is required, and at the end of the season we will announce our immediate next steps and provide details of how the club will operate moving forward."
