Southampton have really struggled since their return to the Premier League, with Russell Martin yet to pick up his first win as a top flight manager.
With one point from six Premier League games, Russell Martin is already starting to feel the pressure at Southampton.
Despite an impressive first season in which he overhauled the Southampton playing style on the way to promotion after seeing 18 players leave the club in his first summer, Martin has quickly learned that football is brutal at the elite level.
Southampton have some really talented players and fans will know they are likely to lose them if they are relegate; as they did at the end of the 2022/23 season.
The summer after relegation, the Saints sold the likes of James Ward-Prowse, Romeo Lavia and Tino Livramento in a summer where the squad was ripped apart.
Former Southampton ace Mohammed Salisu nets in Champions League
One player that left in summer 2023 was Ghanaian centre-back Mohammed Salisu.
Salisu spent spells of the relegation campaign injured and was sorely missed at the heart of a Southampton defence that leaked goals at a remarkable rate.
Prior to that season, Salisu had shown himself to be a really good, if a little rash, defender with bags of potential.
Monaco decided that despite the injury-hit campaign they were willing to spend £17 million to take Salisu to the principality and that is where he has been ever since.
Whilst Southampton are languishing in the Premier League relegation zone, Salisu is playing in the Champions League and he scored a vital goal for his side on Wednesday night.
Having been part of the Monaco side that beat Barcelona 2-1 in their Champions League opener, Salisu fired home the first goal as the French club came from 2-0 down at Dinamo Zagreb to rescue a point in the 2-2 draw in Croatia.
Southampton could do with ‘perfect’ Salisu this season
The fact he is thriving in the Champions League shows just how good Salisu is and Martin must wish he had a defender of the 25-year-old’s ability at his disposal this season.
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Some may argue that he does in Armel Bella-Kotchap and is simply reluctant to use him after a failed summer move away and, on the rare occasions they were both fit to play together, Bella-Kotchap and Salisu looked a formidable partnership.
Speaking after Salisu put in a man of the match performance in a 1-1 draw with Manchester City in January 2022, Danny Murphy singled out Salisu for praise post-match, saying: “It was a phenomenal performance.
“He [Salisu] has had his critics in certain games this season and he can be erratic, but it was a perfect performance.
“He was helped by everyone around him playing well also, but it was a mixture of his aerial ability, his reading of the game, his blocks, patience, his passing when he came out was good.
“He was full of confidence – it looks like he loves defending, he loves the challenge, and everything went well for him.”
With Southampton yet to keep a clean sheet this season and having conceded 12 goals in their six league games, they could really do with a defender of Salsa’s calibre marshalling the backline.