Ex-Rangers star Joe Aribo’s Premier League dream becomes a nightmare and could get even WORSE
JOE ARIBO scored in the Europa League Final 12 months ago - a year on, his switch to Southampton has turned sour.
The midfielder left Rangers to pursue his Premier League dream in a £7m deal last summer.
But the Saints have been relegated and Aribo left on the outside looking in.
When he moved to the south coast he admitted: “I need to sit down and let this one sink in as it’s literally a dream come true - from a child I wanted this.”
And he was left sitting on the bench as the Saints became the first club to hit the deck in one of the tightest EPL relegation scraps in years.
Aribo played in every game until Ralph Hassenhuttl's dismissal and still featured regularly during the early weeks of Nathan Jones' ill-fated reign.
But since the turn of the year the Nigerian international has played less than an hour and a half of top-flight football.
It's a far cry from last term when he played more than any other football star on the PLANET.
On Saturday watched from the bench as Ruben Selles' side - the third boss of the season - lost a fourth consecutive match to seal their fate.
They have circled the top flight drain for months, but a 2-0 defeat to Fulham in front of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saw the plug finally pulled.
Most read in Football
Selles has continually shuffled the pack in search of a miracle to keep Southampton up.
But it hasn't happened.
The current crop - including Scotland internationals Stuart Armstrong and Che Adams - could also set an unwanted club record of the Saints' worst points tally in a Premier League season EVER.
They were a founding member of the new-look league in 1992 and have spent 23 of the 30 seasons since in the top flight.
Carlos Vinicius and Aleksandar Mitrovic delivered the coup de grace on the current season but this moment had been coming for months.
Adams sat this one out altogether and Armstrong was replaced by Moussa Djenepo immediately after Mitrovic made it two on 72 minutes.
And that was it for Southampton. The stands emptied as their fate was sealed.
Their fans now just have two more Premier League games to witness, at Brighton and here against Liverpool, before they go back to the Football League for the first time since 2012.
Two more games to see icon James Ward-Prowse in their red and white before he surely departs, leaving behind a club he loves and has fought for with so many problems to tackle over the summer.
Others will be plucked from a squad which offered much promise on paper but has never looked like delivering in the real world, their limp surrender today is prime evidence of obvious shortcomings.
Sporting director Rasmus Ankersen, absent from the directors’ box as he has often been in recent months, once said: “If it ain't broke, consider breaking it.”
Read more on the Scottish Sun
Having bought Southampton as a largely stable club last January, the Dane has taken his mantra very seriously.
Fans will have huge questions and concerns as to whether he is the right man to plot their route back to the Premier League next season.
Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page