The series of poor decisions that sent Saints marching out of Premier League

They say fortune favours the brave. Not always, as Southampton have discovered to their detriment. Relegation to the Championship ends a largely positive 11-year stay in the Premier League and erases their image as a model club, though in truth that was beginning to be scrubbed away a few years ago.

From radically overhauling the squad with an influx of youngsters to replacing Ralph Hasenhüttl mid-season with Nathan Jones, untested at the elite level, on the merit of metrics and then giving Rubén Sellés the job until the end of the season on the back of a surprise win at Chelsea, a series of bold decisions by the club’s owner, Sport Republic, have badly backfired.

“We have no problem admitting mistakes,” Rasmus Ankersen, the Sport Republic chief executive and former co-director of football at Brentford, said this year. There might be a few to cover off in the close season.

Southampton’s captain, James Ward-Prowse, recently acknowledged how the shift in approach has contributed to their decline. “We all know the changes that happened at the start of the season have had an impact,” he said.

Armel Bella-Kotchap, who was part of Germany’s squad at the World Cup, and Roméo Lavia have burnished their reputations but too many signings have not worked. Theo Walcott, now 34, has been one of Southampton’s best performers in recent weeks.

The data, Ankersen said, suggested Jones would improve Southampton’s record at defending set pieces and deliver more clean sheets. With two games left to play, the numbers make grim reading: Southampton have kept a league-low four clean sheets from 36 matches and only three teams have a worse defensive record at set pieces. They have won once at home in the league since August and lost seven of