There can be no doubt that the loss of five players of the calibre of the likes of Shaw and Lovren is a big loss, but overall it could be the case that we are now stronger as a squad than we were last season.
There has been much made of the departures of the players who have left for the big five clubs, however as much as it will be hard to replace the likes of Lovren and Shaw who undoubtably were players of the top calibre, the actual real loss might not be as big as many would perceive, Callum Chambers will be a great player, but last season he only played around half the games in the League and he was not part of the team that stormed up to fourth in the League, Rickie Lambert is a Saints legend but his contribution was wexcellent in some games but non existent in others, chances are that if he had stayed he would have been used more sparingly. Adam Lallana again made a telling contribution, but he couldnt seem to complete a full 90 minutes and was substituted a lot more times with about an hour gone than he should have been.
Under Mauriccio Pochettino they were all key elements of the team, but we had a team and not a squad, Pochettino used a core of around 14/15 outfield players last term and the rest of the squad was just makeweight, indeed by the last quarter of the season with Osvaldo gone and Rodriguez out injured that core was down to 13 and two of them were right backs.
This shows tha lack of depth that we had in the squad, it also highlights that as much as our youth players were touted Pochettino was loathe to use any of them unless in an absolute emergency, people forget Chambers was completely ignored by the Argentinian for a full three months not even bringing him off the bench.
Now however we seem to have a manager who likes to use a squad, more to the point we also have youngsters who with a year's more experience and knowing that they could be something more than making up the squad numbers this year are ready to step up to the plate.
But its more than just youngsters, Koeman is putting together a squad that can be adaptable, already he seems to be looking at players who are versatile, Ryan Bertrand or instance can operate at left back or in a more forward position, Taider can play out wide or centrally, Gardos is able to play in central midfield or as a holding player, you feel that Koeman will be much more about using the squad and being able to change tactics than his predecessor was.
Last season as mentioned was all about that core of 15, now we have in terms of outfield players a core of 15/16 proven players, but we also have a group of youngsters who have had a fine pre season and are ready to step up to the plate, you have a feeling that Koeman will want and use a squad of 20 plus, especially if he brings in another player or two before the end of the window.
Last season saw us beat the sides at the bottom but struggle against those in the top half of the table, in fact if we go down to 15th in the table, if we take those 7 clubs & 14 games, we won only 5 times, (2 against Palace & Swansea plus home to Newcastle) it was the bottom five where we made hay winning 8 out of 10 games.
What this tells us is that our first XI was good but in truth was firstly punching above its weight and secondly once injuries or suspension hit we did not have the quality in reserve to turn games against the middle table sides into wins, the third issue is perhaps just that, we could not and did not change tactics when our plan A was sussed, of those aforementioned 14 games we drew 7 and lost only 2, we just didnt have the squad.
So I would suggest that after all this upheaval we are better equipped to take on a Premier league season, we hve a squad not a team and we have a manager able to switch tactics and use that squad, something we did not have last season, of course ideally we would have kept the players we sold and bought in new players, but even Nicola Cortese's motto was "we achieve success through change" and we have done some good business that overall should stand us in good stead.
The only real concern is the time it has taken to make key signings meaning that we go into the Liverpool game a little under prepared, but in the long run I think we will be far better equipped and we now have options, hopefully this will mean that there is no reason why we cannot match last seasons achievements and go on to better them.