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

2. The Failings Of Top Teams

Southampton's current high flying league position is not entirely of their own making. As they were running away with their dominant victory over Hull on Saturday, many of the pre-season favourites were floundering. Chelsea just scraped a point at home to West Brom, while Sunday saw Tottenham and Man City both lose 1-0 to Newcastle and Sunderland respectively. Having scored 12 goals in their last two games, City failed to put one past a team that had already conceded 22 and that's as good an indication as any of how unpredictable the top teams have been this season. As well as challenging at Stamford Bridge, West Brom also scored a famous win at Old Trafford in the season and its fair to say that champions Man United have struggled to find their best form under David Moyes. With changes of management at all of last year's top three and a number of changes to the players at Tottenham, it has taken a while for the top clubs to decide on what makes their best starting 11. Arsenal and Liverpool currently make up the top two largely because they are the ones who haven't made any sweeping changes and have been able to hit the ground running with just a couple of key additions. Recent defeats to Chelsea, Dortmund and Man United have called into question Arsenal's likelihood of taking home the title, but they remain top through being the only team to put together a significant run of good form. It's at moments where the traditional favourites struggle that there are opportunities for consistent, well organised underdogs to seize the opportunity to establish themselves amongst the leading pack. It's happened before recently when Newcastle finished 5th above European Champions Chelsea in 2012, so there's every possibility of Saints taking further advantage of the failings of the teams around them this year.