Southampton: 5 Ways That It's All Gone Right This Season

5. Ambitious But Realistic Long Term Planning

After their parent company went into administration in 2009, Southampton ended up both relegated from the Championship and starting the 2009-10 League 1 season with a score of -10 points. At this moment the future looked bleak for the club, but the intervention of Swiss-German businessman Markus Liebherr completely turned things around. After purchasing the club in July 2009, Liebherr only lived long enough to see his new club pick up the 2010 Football League Trophy before his death in August of that year. However, the plans that he had put in place with Italian banker and club chairman Nicola Cortese have seen them rise rapidly through the ranks. Liebherr and Cortese made no secret of their desire to make Southampton a successful top flight team, but unlike the stupendously wealthy likes of QPR's Tony Fernandes they approached these ambitions with reasonable targets rather than throwing the kind of money around that could put the club right back into administration. They aimed to be back in the Premier League in 5 years, they did it in 3. Cortese has made a few enemies around the club and beyond for his ruthless streak, falling out with Football League Trophy winning manager Alan Pardew and swiftly replacing him with Nigel Adkins, before surprisingly dispatching Adkins last year to bring in Mauricio Pochettino. Fans might have been concerned at getting rid of managers who had done well up to that point, but it is all part of the club's progress. Cortese wants to see Saints compete in Europe within the next few years and Pochettino was brought in to achieve that. Comparing his record to that of Adkins, it's hard to fault the application of these plans.