Southampton: Mark Hughes blew everything with a £16 million flop
He ultimately left St. Mary’s on a free transfer following an unsuccessful stint in England.
Over the years, Southampton has pulled off a number of brilliant heists in the transfer market, making money off of players like Virgil van Dijk, Romeo Lavia, Tino Livramento, and Sadio Mane, among others.
Prior to their relegation to the Championship earlier this year, they also suffered a series of costly failures during their most recent season in the Premier League.
Who are Southampton’s most expensive signings?
| Top five signings | Fee paid (via Transfermarkt) |
|---|---|
| Tino Livramento | £22.6m* |
| Danny Ings | £21.7m |
| Kamaldeen Sulemana | £21.6m |
| Jannik Vestergaard | £21.6m |
| Sadio Mane | £19.8m |
*Includes the sell-on fee that Chelsea received from his move to Newcastle United this summer.
Guido Carrillo, an Argentine forward who was signed from Monaco by Mauricio Pellegrino in 2018, was the subject of a recent FFC piece highlighting the manager’s error, but there have been many other instances of subpar hiring over the past five or so years.
Mohamed Elyounoussi, a player from Norway who joined St. Mary’s in the summer of 2018, also proved to be a terrible addition to the team.
Mohamed Elyounoussi cost Southampton how much?
Prior to the 2018–19 season, the Saints reportedly spent a sizable sum of £16 million to acquire the services of winger from Swiss club FC Basel.
Mark Hughes was the club’s manager at the time and described him as an “exciting” signing after the forward had enjoyed a terrific time in Switzerland.
The talented winger appeared to be a promising addition for Southampton on paper as he had produced goals and assists on a regular basis for Basel throughout the previous two seasons.
In the 2016/17 campaign, Elyounoussi caught the eye with ten goals and 13 assists in 32 Super League outings for the Swiss outfit, although he did fail to chip in with a single goal or assist in three Champions League matches.
He followed that up with 11 goals and 15 assists in 33 top-flight games during the 2017/18 season and stepped up his game in Europe’s premier cup competition.
The Norwegian ace racked up two goals and two assists in eight Champions League appearances and averaged a Sofascore rating of 7.08 as his side were eventually knocked out by Manchester City in the last 16.
His impressive spell with Basel came after he started his career in his home country with 36 goals and 13 assists in 108 Eliteserien matches for Molde and Sarpsborg combined.
These statistics show that Elyounoussi had proven himself to be a reliable attacking outlet out wide in both Norway and Switzerland by that point in his career, which convinced Southampton and Hughes to lavish a £16m fee out to secure his signature in the summer of 2018.
How many goals did Elyounoussi score for Southampton?
However, the now-29-year-old dud was unable to carry his form over to English football as he struggled to deliver consistent performances out wide at St. Mary’s.
Elyounoussi ended his Southampton career with nine goals in 90 appearances in all competitions across his five years on the south coast, although he did spend time away on loan at Celtic in Scotland.
The Norway international’s first season with the club was a disaster as the £16m signing failed to score or assist a single goal in 16 Premier League appearances for Hughes and averaged a Sofascore rating of 6.75 – the 14th-highest within the squad.
He lost 53% of his physical duels, as opposition players found it too easy to knock him off the ball, and missed four ‘big chances’ in front of goal, as per Sofascore, indicating that he did have the opportunities to find his first goal in English football.
Southampton then opted to send him out on loan to Celtic and he ended up with the Scottish giants for two seasons, in which time the ex-Basel star racked up 24 goals and 14 assists in 67 outings.
His solid form at Parkhead convinced Ralph Hasenhuttl to reintegrate him into the first-team set-up at St. Mary’s in 2021 but Elyounoussi was unable to offer consistent quality at the top end of the pitch throughout the 2021/22 and 2022/23 campaigns.
He produced five goals and three assists in 63 Premier League games over his last two seasons with the club and struggled badly last term as the club were relegated to the Championship.
Elyounoussi averaged a dismal Sofascore rating of 6.64 across 33 top-flight outings, which included 27 starts, and that was the 20th-highest score within the squad of a team that was not good enough to avoid the drop.
The 29-year-old contributed at the top end of the pitch with one goal and one assist to go along with just 0.5 key passes per match, which to put that into context, was less than nine of his teammates managed per game.
His former assistant coach at Sarpsborg, Ian Burchnall, once claimed that the winger “frustrated” supporters with his one-dimensional player and lack of positional discipline. That is very hard to argue against.
How much did Southampton receive for Elyounoussi?
Southampton did not receive a single penny in transfer fees for the Norway international as they decided to release him upon the expiry of his contract at St. Mary’s earlier this year.
This meant that the attacker left the club for £0 after a disappointing five-year spell with the Saints, in which time his best form came during a loan with Celtic in Scotland.
Therefore, Hughes had a howler with the former Basel marksman as Elyounoussi consistently failed to do enough to impress on the pitch with his poor performances and lack of a cutting edge in the final third.
He did not provide goals or assists on a regular basis and ended up being an expensive flop for the Saints as they spent £16m and did not receive much back in the way of quality on the pitch to go along with allowing him to leave for nothing this summer.
Elyounoussi was not cut out to play at Premier League level, based on his poor form for Southampton, and impressed when playing in Switzerland, Norway, and Scotland.
Unfortunately, Hughes and the club were not able to predict that he would not be able to translate his form for Basel over to England.
Hopefully, the Saints will have better luck when plucking a player from a league outside of the major European divisions in the future, particularly when they they spend a significant fee to secure their services on a long-term deal.
