itsbeautifuloutside started with a simple forum in 2011 and soon expanded to cover Saints matches, initially by reprinting long-time fan Herbie Taylor's entertaining reports of the home games at St.Mary's in the 2011/12 season.
Following this, the 2012/13 season had in-house match reports and over the years has expanded to cover away games as well, including reports from several different regulars from the IBO Forum.
What we have in this section is an almost complete record of this period of the Saints history. I am aware that there are several blank spaces and it is my hope that I will be able to fill in these blanks at some stage.
The three sections below represent our humble attempt to cover Saints' years in the Premier League since promotion in 2012, culminating in relegation back to The Championship in 2023. At the bottom of each section is a button that will take you to all the match reports we have done and more.
Well, not really a good start was it?!
The 2022-23 season was Sports Republics' first full year in control and they made a right pig's ear of things, culminating in relegation to The Championship. It wasn't even close to survival, rock bottom with statistically the worst manager Saints have ever had.
Starting the season with Ralph, who was burnt out by that stage, following up with Nathan Jones, who was just embarrassingly out of his depth and put out of his misery, and finally finishing with Reuben Selles, who seemed a decent man, but just had no idea how to snap Saints out of their, by now deeply ingrained, losing habit. His win ratio of just 11.76% is comfortably the worst ever. And that takes some doing.
Still, maybe Sports Republic have learnt from their mistakes, but getting back to The Premier League is a big ask now.
Do not expect to see a complete list of match reports as, just like the team, we gave up.
On the 15th August 2017 overall control of Southampton FC passed to the Chinese group that has been negotiating for months and months to take over club. Jisheng Gao and his daughter, Nelly bought 80% of the club and Katharina Liebherr retained 20%. The original plan seems to have been for Mr. Gao's company, Lander Sports Development to take over the club, but this caused insoluble problems getting it approved by the Chinese state. So, in the end it came down to a personal investment by father and daughter.
I think it fair to say that the club's on field performance has not been as good as you could hope for and you can read on how it went in the first season here by clicking on the button below
From Promotion to the Premier League for the 2012-13 Season to the final season of Katharina Liebherr's stewardship in 2016-17 saw some of the best football to be seen at St.Mary's. Unfortunately that last season with Claude Puel as manager was where it all started to go wrong. Initially things looked good, with steady progress through the early rounds of the League Cup making up for some pretty disappointing performances in the league at home.
The League Cup Final against Manchester United marked the high point for the club, with a fine performance which should have seen a happier outcome, but ended up with another trophy for Mourinho's men.
Read through some of the seasons match reports by clicking on the button below.
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