All change at slipping Saints

By Tim Dykes

Southampton FC went into tonight's 3-3 Premiership draw at home against Fulham FC almost unrecognisable from the team that sat fourth in the table 12 months ago. On the back of an FA Cup final appearance, Gordon Strachan's side had tasted European football for the first time since the 1984/85 season and the club's more excitable supporters were anticipating a second successive UEFA Cup campaign.

Beattie sold
However, since Christmas Day 2003, Saints have won just seven Premiership matches - only two of which have come this season. With James Beattie, the club's leading scorer in recent seasons, freshly departed for Everton FC, new manager Harry Redknapp must act fast if he is to prevent the club sliding out of the top flight for the first time in 27 years.

Lifeless midfield
Redknapp has already brought in his son Jamie to add a spark of creativity to a lifeless midfield and shored up the defence with the loan acquisition of highly-rated Calum Davenport. With the majority of €8.5m to spend following Beattie's departure, more signings are sure to follow, but the current manager will not be to blame if the great escape does not materialise.

Stubborn Strachan
After being sacked as manager of relegated Coventry City FC in 2001, Strachan went on record as saying he wished he had walked away from the club once he had guided them to an eleventh-placed finish in 1998. The wily Scot reflected how he felt he had taken Coventry as far as he could so in February 2004, perhaps having learned from his mistakes, he cut short his contract and quit Southampton on a high.

Hoddle hints
As Steve Wigley took temporary charge, shrewd but impatient Southampton chairman Rupert Lowe hoped to reappoint Glenn Hoddle as Strachan's full-time successor. But he relented after fierce protests from fans who viewed the former England manager's defection from Southampton to Tottenham Hotspur FC three years earlier as an act of betrayal. Instead, Lowe installed Paul Sturrock, the man who had engineered Plymouth Argyle FC's rapid rise through the lower leagues - but his brief tenure was not a happy one.

Alarm bells
By his own admission, Sturrock was out of his depth and he left the club by mutual consent just two games into the current campaign. Wigley once again stepped up from running Southampton's youth academy to steer the ship and was even given the ambiguous title of head coach, but an injury crisis went hand-in-hand with a torrid winless streak and when the club limped out of the League Cup 5-2 at lowly Watford FC, alarm bells rang louder than ever.

Redknapp arrival
A second win of the season, at home against local rivals Portsmouth FC, was not enough to save Wigley's job but a remarkable twist was on the cards. Unhappy with the installation of Panathinaikos FC mastermind Velimir Zajec above him, Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp resigned and Lowe swiftly secured his services. However, fresh optimism vanished when a two-goal lead did likewise in the last 60 seconds of Redknapp's first game in charge, against Middlesbrough FC, and the enormity of the task facing him was made clear.

Relegation battles
Southampton have scraped clear of relegation many times, most notably in the 1998/99 season when the team picked up maximum points from their last three games to survive on the final day. But with their hero from that season, Latvian international Marians Pahars, dogged by a persistent ankle injury, key centre-half Michael Svensson out for the season, Beattie departed and club talisman Matthew Le Tissier long since retired, the future looks bleak.