Ronald Koeman is more than a manager. He has also become a stick with which to beat other managers. Whenever a coach pleads for more time to embed his ideas, adapt to the loss of players or integrate new ones, impatient folks can reach for Koeman, point to the job he has done so far at Southampton, then wallop the whiny other manager.
Things are going so swimmingly that even the managers of Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, the only sides to have beaten Southampton this season, are among the victims of Koeman-inspired bashing.
This win over Leicester City, Southampton’s 11th in their past 12 in all competitions and their fourth league game in a row without conceding a goal, gave even more kudos to Koeman. Victory was secured by goals from the only one of the manager’s recruits about whom there had been doubts. Shane Long was Saints’ most expensive summer signing, arriving for £12m from Hull City in a transaction widely used as a benchmark of Premier League extravagance. “If Shane Long is worth £12m, then so-and-so is worth at least £100m,” became a common line on radio phone-ins and the like.
The Irishman has rarely been prolific and his failure to find the net in his first nine Premier League matches for his new club did nothing to make such quips go away, even though his energetic performances were generally good. Koeman knew the striker would improve because the manager has worked hard to teach him a new style in which to play. Long has always been a willing runner, harassing opponents relentlessly but Koeman wants him to be more savvy in the way he expends his energy.
Whereas Graziano Pellè, the other striker bought in the summer, had worked previously with Koeman, Long had to adjust to new methods. This, then, was an instance where even Koeman needed time to get his ideas across. The two fine finishes that thwarted Leicester’s attempt to frustrate their hosts suggest it has been well spent.
“We do a lot of position games and position training sessions and he was not used to doing that always,” Koeman said of Long. “It’s not just about running in football. OK, you need to run to get behind the ball, you need physical strength but I am a coach who likes to have and to dominate the ball and that’s all about good positions. It’s not running. The more you run, the less you see. And that was difficult for Shane in the beginning but little by little he’s improving. And we’re very happy to have a player like him in the squad.”
Koeman said that although Long was bought primarily as a centre-forward, where he has spent most of his career, the plan was always to develop him into a player who can be deployed anywhere across the front line. Pellè’s success means Long has so far been stationed out wide, which is where he was used after replacing Sadio Mané on Saturday. The way he broke the deadlock in the 75th minute, darting in off the wing to meet a lay-back from Pellè and curl a lovely shot in the far corner, was encouraging to Koeman.
“I spoke to Shane before we signed him and the first option is to play in the No9 position as the target man which Graziano Pellè plays. But he can play behind Pellè, which we did for the Capital One Cup game against Stoke [when Long scored], and he can play from the left and the right wing position. I know he’s not really a wing player but he scored the first goal, that we like to have. His understanding is much better than in the beginning and he made the difference.”
Long is grateful both for his manager’s approach and for the fact all the summer changes at the club meant he felt under less pressure than he might otherwise have done. “Luckily the focus hasn’t been on me individually,” he said. “It has kind of been on us as a team with so many players leaving and so many players coming in and everyone expecting us to have a bad season. To be fair to the manager, he has blended the players well. It doesn’t just happen on a Saturday, you know, we do put a lot of work into how we play football.”
Man of the match Ryan Bertrand (Southampton)
