Mauricio Pellegrino did not have the ideal start to his career as a Premier League manager. Virgil van Dijk in effect went on strike shortly after the Argentinian walked through the Southampton door, casting a cloud of uncertainty over pre-season as he tried to make a good first impression on his players. Perhaps it worked in Pellegrino’s favour that he comes across as an incredibly calm and philosophical character. He is also realistic and understands that the match at Liverpool on Saturday has put Van Dijk under the microscope again – not that he thinks it will affect his leading defender.
“I don’t think it will be difficult because Virgil knows he is focused 100% on our team and is training well,” Pellegrino says of a player who was primed to move to Anfield for £60m in June before a complaint of tapping up forced Liverpool into a humiliating climbdown. “He wants to improve his performances because he was injured in January and then he didn’t play any games. We cannot control the market and every single transfer window clubs are looking to buy our players. It’s part of our job. It’s no secret that sometimes players are distracted but it’s normal.”
Southampton’s start to the season has been a stuttering one, as Pellegrino has wrestled with the task of trying to stamp a new identity on a team that have hinted at progress before stalling again. They are 13th, having won three, drawn four and lost four, but with games at Liverpool and Manchester City comprising two of their next three fixtures, they will do well to hold that position. Pellegrino could be forgiven for being a little jumpy when asked about Southampton’s form so far but he is incredibly optimistic and prefers to focus on the positives. “The results? I am like the people, the fans, because you saw in the last game [a 1-0 defeat against Burnley] that we deserved a little bit more than the points we got,” he says. “Most of the games, like Burnley away, Swansea, Stoke or Manchester United, we deserved more because when we talk about two or three points in the Premier League, it’s massive. Between eighth and 17th last year there were six points. I think we are on the right track.”
His brief was to keep Southampton on an upward trajectory but at a club that have finished in the top 10 for the past four seasons that task always appeared to be a difficult one – particularly when Claude Puel was sacked in the summer after finishing eighth and reaching the League Cup final. But Pellegrino shrugs off the notion that he feels under pressure and smiles. He is relishing the challenge.
“I am really motivated because when I met the technical directors, Ross [Wilson] and Les [Reed], they told me that the club wants to grow – and for me that’s the most beautiful thing in our life: to try and be better tomorrow than today. But the big risk in football is to work in football. It’s like the biggest risk is to be alive, no?
“When you’re on the motorway, you are taking a big risk. But in our job to work in football we are living for results. I played football from my childhood and, OK, I got the feeling of success, of failure, to draw or win. When you win, OK, you are happy an hour and you have to train again and try to win again. When you are champion, you are happy for a day and after you have to train again to try to achieve another title. It’s part of our job, no?”
Pellegrino has never been one to look back on success or failure for too long, having experienced both at Valencia as a player (he won two league titles) and manager (he was sacked in 2012). Instead he prefers to learn from those experiences and move on. He is a studious type who believes in juego posicional (a positional game) having absorbed tactical ideas as a player under Louis van Gaal at Barcelona, where he also won La Liga, and Rafael Benítez at Valencia and Liverpool, where he was given a coaching job for the first time.
In Southampton’s last game, against Burnley, his side’s positional authority could be seen in the post-match stats. Saints enjoyed 63% possession and had twice as many shots as their opponents but could not score and lost 1-0. It has been the story of their stop-start season so far, with Manolo Gabbiadini’s two goals against Newcastle looking as if they might be the turning point only for the striker to retreat back into his goal‑shy shell again.
“When we think about the last 10 games we have had the same problem but we have to be more efficient,” Pellegrino says. “We need a really, really high number of chances to convert into goals. I cannot imagine [Sofiane] Boufal, [Nathan] Redmond, Gabbiadini or Dusan Tadic, running 90 minutes behind the ball. Our style of players are comfortable with the ball, close to the box. Sometimes the opponent has ideas and strengths and quality too and in the Premier League there are a group of teams where we are really tight. I think the connection we all have could not get any better.”
Pellegrino’s man-management is not in doubt. He’s a staunch believer in everyone – the cook, fans, kitman, himself – playing their part in a team’s success. It’s what worked so well at Alavés in La Liga, whom he guided to ninth place and the Copa del Rey final last season – a startlingly similar season to that of Puel at Southampton. Pellegrino hopes he can forge the same unity at his new club, where he has gathered all the Saints backroom staff together to take on a UK media XI in a game organised by the club’s main sponsor, Virgin Media. The club’s staff play every Friday to build a sense of togetherness. Pellegrino has a Zen quality about him as he calmly strides around in defence quelling any danger. He even nutmegs our striker while under pressure in his own penalty area. It’s a creative solution to a threatening problem.
He will need to be similarly inventive to solve the team’s problem of scoring goals but Pellegrino believes he is not far off doing so. “I have to try to adapt to my players to what I can do and I have to try to put my ideas on the pitch. It’s like a medium point between them and my belief. At the end, in football there is no truth, there is belief. When you want to [attack] more you have to be balanced but you have to think in the same way whether you attack or defend because in the end everything is connected. If you defend badly, it is really difficult to attack well. If you attack badly, it’s difficult to defend. We are a team that is comfortable when we manage the ball.”
Whether they can do that well enough to frustrate a Liverpool side who have won three games in a row remains to be seen but Pellegrino says Southampton are looking forward to playing at Anfield. “It’s a special place for me. I have good memories of this club as a player and as a coach. It was a wonderful moment in my life but in this case I would like to win the game,” he says. “The good thing in football is that it’s unpredictable. Sometimes the first thing that you have to do, you have to try to make them feel uncomfortable. When you play against one of the biggest teams, mentally for us it will be easier because everybody will be motivated to try and achieve something more. It is good because you can see how you are against one of the best teams in the Premier League. You think about [when we played] Manchester United, they scored one goal but they did not have many chances – I think we only conceded a couple of crosses but we have to continue the same way.”
Whether his team win or lose, it is hard to imagine Pellegrino’s mood changing much – his even-tempered outlook is refreshing in a league that so often thumps along to a bombastic beat. His message will need to remain consistent throughout what could be a testing period before Christmas but Southampton can take comfort in the fact that their manager approaches every day with his glass half full. “I am happy because right now I am totally out of my comfort zone. I love my job. I know there is a big pressure, a big risk, but I have to do it. All my life, it is the only thing I can do.”
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