Premier League Weekend Review: Sad, but Saints don't have the squad to keep this run going

Ronald Koeman... has defied the doom mongers

Southampton have won 10 of their last 11 games in an astonishing start to the season. Ralph Ellis looks at whether they can sustain that sort of run across a season...

Southampton have been here before. Exactly a year ago, in fact. They had just beaten Hull 4-1, had gone third in the table, and the papers were talking about them getting into Europe, maybe even the Champions League.

"Saints in Lalla land" was the headline on one of the reports, discussing how a certain Adam Lallana was emerging as a potential member of Roy Hodgson's World Cup squad. The England manager had even been to St Mary's to watch the game.

So here we are, a year on, and guess what? Hodgson made his November trip to see Saints again, this time going all the way to Hull on a Saturday afternoon. And his journey was worthwhile, because Nathaniel Clyne is looking every inch a solution to the search for a right back that has gone on since Gary Neville packed in, while Ryan Bertrand is adding yet another name to the list of potential left backs to follow on from Ashley Cole.

The big question, however, is what happens next? Last November the answer was a collapse which saw Mauricio Pochettino take just one win and five measly points from the following nine games and reality took hold again.

Can Ronald Koeman really do better? Harsh reality says probably not - which makes it a great time to lay Saints at their current odds-on price of 1.9620/21 for a top six finish.

Koeman has done fantastically well so far to defy the pre-season doom mongers who thought the wholesale departure of last year's stars might end in relegation (and I admit I was one of them). The Dutchman has set out a pattern of play that's given his team both a cast-iron defence and the ability to go forward.

He's kept fantastic consistency of selection, with six players who have been involved in every game including three Capital One Cup wins, and three more who have appeared in every Premier League match. Before the season started they were matched at 150.0149/1 for a top four finish - now that is down to merely 4.47/2.

You'd love to see them carry on. But sadly for the Saints dreamers, there always comes a point in a season when injuries and suspensions start to test the depth of a squad, and that will happen to Koeman too. Then we'll see just how badly the club's strength was affected by the summer rush to cash in on the most saleable assets, and that is when they will inevitably start sliding back down the table.

That's what happened to Pochettino, although of course it didn't matter too much for him because Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy had already been bewitched and his next job was being lined up. But it is what will happen to Koeman too, much as you'd love to believe that it is possible for one of the smaller Premier League sides to stay the distance with the big boys.

You wouldn't rule out them winning the Capital One Cup, with a quarter-final at League One Sheffield United they are currently priced at 6.05/1 - just as Swansea did in Michael Laudrup's exhilarating first season.

But the Premier League is a different and more brutal proposition, and come May it will be the big boys with the strongest finances who fill the top positions.

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