Southampton
Southampton has been something of a purist’s curiosity over the past couple of seasons. Following massive financial difficulties in the last decade, Southampton poured all of its funds into developing a youth system. Rather than buy stars, the team makes them. The downside of this is that the stars are usually purchased by bigger clubs before they hit their 25th birthday. Even so, Southampton has made an art form of doing well with a mixture of talented kids and canny signings purchased with the funds from the sales of last year’s kids. The team seems to endlessly rejuvenate, so let’s see if they can do it again.
Stars: They are something of the platonic ideal of a team, with many evenly matched contributors. But midfield wrecking ball Victor Wanyama and handsome striker Graziano Pelle stand out in the crowd.
