Matt Le Tissier: Southampton players made me look like a workhorse

Former legendary Southampton forward Matt Le Tissier has told William Hill’s podcast, Up Front with Simon Jordan, that the efforts of players in Southampton’s relegated side made him look like a workhorse, and that, among other factors, recruitment was largely to blame for the Saints’ relegation.

Featuring on William Hill’s Up Front with Simon Jordan, a brand-new podcast hosted by the former Crystal Palace owner who speaks to sports stars and celebrities and challenges their opinions whilst scrutinising their careers, Le Tissier discussed his former side’s relegation and the factors behind it,: “I was at the game when they got relegated against Fulham, and some of those players made me look like a workhorse. It was incredible.

“I sat in that stadium and watched a team go down without a fight. For all the accusations that were levelled at me in my career, the one you would never have thrown at me is that when we were in a relegation scrap, I did not hide. What I witnessed in that game was not nice.

“I think the biggest portion of the blame, because you can’t just lay the blame on one person when you get relegated, lies with the recruitment policy, we spent £140 million this season and we’ve never done that in our history without selling somebody else for big money. You have to look at that and say how can we, after spending that amount of money, be detached at the bottom of the Premier League?

“I don’t think you can actually look at the owners themselves, they’ve put their hands in their pockets to a serious extent and backed the team with a whole bunch of money that they’d ever had before, but recruitment, for me, was poor. The players have to take a look at themselves as well because I saw some woeful performances this season.”

Nathan Jones appointment a ‘car crash’

Le Tissier, who is regarded by many as Southampton’s best ever player, also discussed the sacking of manager Ralph Hasenhüttl early on in the season, and the subsequent hiring of Nathan Jones.

“Nathan Jones was a car crash,” said Le Tissier. “I don’t think he’s below the level in terms of his ability to coach, and I think they thought they made some really intelligent decisions based on the numbers, but his ability to manage Premier League footballers was the problem, and his ability to come across well in his press conferences wasn’t there, and sometimes it was a bit bizarre.

“I could understand the decision to sack [Ralph] Hassenhutl at the time because the club hadn’t really moved forward in terms of where we were when he took over. You could argue that he wasn’t really backed, but this season he had been with about £80 million in the summer which was a significant spend. How much say he had in those transfers I don’t know.

“I liked him. I liked the way that he tried to get his teams to play. I thought sometimes that he had deficiencies in that he kept trying to go back to a three at the back, which our players were not capable of and every time he did it we got smashed. Some of his substitutions were bizarre too. I could understand why the decision was made to let him go but once you make that decision you have to get it right.”

Lots of similarities between Brighton and Southampton of old

With Brighton on the rise, Le Tissier discussed the similarities of the club with Southampton’s model of developing players, selling them, and replenishing the squad, which saw successes for them in past years.

“I see a lot of similarities between Southampton of a few years ago and Brighton now,” said Le Tissier. “It’s really hard to keep hold of a player who is being coveted by one of the big clubs, and that is just football. The harsh reality is that 99% of football clubs are selling clubs, it’s just about what level you’re selling to. That’s why it’s so hard to break into the real top echelons of football unless you have billions with which to try and break into the level where you’re really challenging with the big boys.

“What Brighton have done is incredible, but the question is whether or they can sustain it? I think there’s a possibility that Brighton could end up in the same situation as Southampton because it’s not just what’s on the field, if you start getting a recruitment team that does well, they’re going to get taken by the big clubs, and that’s what happened to us. It’s really difficult to keep replenishing and at some point you will get it wrong, because nobody gets every decision right in football.”