Southampton vs Fulham - 5 Reasons Why Saints Will Continue Wonder Run

5. Coaching And Improved Defence

When the Liebherr consortium took over the club, they wanted to bring a new style of football to St Marys. They wanted to bring continental football to the English game. Attacking, pressing football, whilst keeping a sturdy defence. Don't give the ball away cheaply, chase every lost ball, utilise players like Morgan Schneiderlin to become the Southampton equivalent of Xavi or Iniesta, and use the pace of the flanks to get the ball up the pitch. After Liebherr's death, chairman Nicola Cortese, has continued this vision and named it 'The Southampton Way'. Mixing the continental style of football, with the traditional English game, is the way that he wants Saints to play. Like Arsenal: Using young, exciting English talent, with quality continental stars, in order to beat win 4-1, as we did against Aston Villa last year, but also grind out defensive 1-0 wins. From the moment Liebherr took over, the change was obvious. Bringing in Alan Pardew who took us from a 10 point deduction to just narrowly missing out on the playoffs in his first season. Then, in a genius move, we brought in one of, if not the greatest managers in our history in Nigel Adkins. He took us up two divisions, playing great, attacking football. Using our full backs Frazer Richardson and Danny Fox in the Championship, to put in superb crosses to Billy Sharp or Rickie Lambert was one of the key factors as to why we gained back-to-back promotions. After a promising start in the Championship, Cortese took the controversial (to this day) decision to replace Nigel Adkins with former Espanyol manager Mauricio Pochettino. He took Adkins's attacking football, and altered it to a style that prioritises pressing football while also tightening up a defence. At this stage last season, we had conceded over 20 goals, whereas now we have the second best defence in Europe, conceding just 3 goals in 8 games. Pochettino should take partial credit for bringing in players like Dejan Lovren, but also a world class goalkeeping coach in Toni Jimenez, who has turned around the fortunes of Artur Boruc. This brings us to our defence. As I mentioned, it is the second best defence in Europe, with only Roma conceding fewer. With our attacking options not flowing as much as this time last season, the South Coast Club have come to rely on their new found defensive expertise. We have two future England full backs (More on them later), but the main focus of this argument is the addition of the brilliant Dejan Lovren. He has been a revolution since joining us in June. He has plugged the hole in the defence that so dearly needed plugging last year. So far this season, he has had an 80% pass completion record of an average of 23m, several vital clearances, winning 73% of battles in the air and an 80% successful tackle completion record, as well as a crucial winner at Anfield against Liverpool (and possibly an equaliser at Old Trafford). Aside from being a defensive rock, he has improved Jose Fonte. He has been a different player to the player we saw last year. Gone are his defensive errors, and instead replaced with a dependable centre back, with more passes being completed, more blocks and more interceptions than at this point last season. Between them, and aided by Boruc, Clyne and Shaw, our defence is sturdy and dependable, and with Fulham having problems in front of goal themselves (they put 4 past Crystal Palace on Monday night, but prior to that they had only scored 5 goals in 7 games), I can see Boruc keeping his sixth clean sheet of the campaign on Saturday.