These are high times at Southampton, in every sense of the word. High achievement, high in the table and no doubt high on life, having proved just about every critic wrong with their start to the season under Ronald Koeman.

Southampton were supposed to be heading for relegation but instead reside among the Champions League contenders. They were supposed to have sold the future but now appear capable of building a brighter one.

Victor Wanyama is surrounded by team-mates as Ronald Koeman's Southampton picked up another win

Victor Wanyama's strike with 10 minutes remaining was enough to grab a win against Swansea on Saturday; it means Southampton lie second in the table despite having sold many of their star performers in summer

Southampton were beaten at Liverpool on the opening weekend, but they deserved something

The fixture list has been kind to them, too, with matches against West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United, Newcastle United and Swansea City. A cynic would argue that the only game they have played against an elite team, Liverpool away, was lost.

Yet anyone who was at Anfield that day knows Southampton deserved a point from the game, while Swansea and West Ham have recorded credible results already this season — but lost at home to Southampton.

So the new regime is doing fine. More than fine, in fact. Queens Park Rangers are up next and then old boss Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham Hotspur.

Southampton should be well into their stride by the time they are pitted against both Manchester clubs, plus Arsenal, in the space of a week at the start of December.

Yet optimists beware. Selling so many good players without a corresponding drop in fortune brings its own peril.

The people upstairs may now think this football lark is easy. They may persuade themselves this is how the game works and a smart club cannot just survive but thrive, and maintain its forward momentum, while shedding staff.

Yet Southampton are taking advantage of a moment in time. The event that was seen by many as the biggest blow, the loss of Pochettino, was actually a blessing in disguise. The change enabled them to make a fresh start without the air of gloom that would have hung over the place had an incumbent manager seen his team sold.

Pochettino had brought through, or bought, the majority of the players that were traded in the summer. He signed Dejan Lovren from Lyon in 2013, Luke Shaw was awarded a five-year contract and eventually grew to be the world’s most expensive teenage footballer on his watch, and he gave Calum Chambers his Premier League debut.

Adam Lallana and Rickie Lambert became England internationals under Pochettino’s guidance, too. Had he remained, he would have been crushed by these departures.

Instead, Koeman turned circumstances to his advantage. He knew of those players but had not worked with them. So losing them was a blow, but he could accentuate the positive. Look at all this lovely lolly: now I build my team.

Koeman kept what remained of Pochettino’s aspiring squad and added complemental signings: Fraser Forster in goal, plus the impressive Graziano Pelle, who has made an instant impact from Feyenoord with four goals in six games.

Graziano Pelle jumps for joy after opening the scoring for Southampton in their 4-0 victory over Newcastle

The problem is Koeman has made it look a breeze. Successfully riding the sale of so many players at once is an unusual achievement; that was why the predictions for Southampton this season were gloomy. If the board thinks it can get away with it year on year, there is an inevitable conclusion.

One player too many.

It happened at Wimbledon, eventually, and Leeds United. Keep selling and there will be a tipping point, a vital component lost that cannot be replaced. For Leeds it was Jonathan Woodgate, and there will be an equivalent at Southampton — perhaps Morgan Schneiderlin, which is why Koeman put up such resistance to his sale.

He should be concerned by reports that the player now carries a £30million price tag to ward off suitors. The way to ward off suitors is to say no.

Dejan Lovren (left) and Adam Lallana (second left) left Saints in the summer along with several others

Southampton boss Ronald Koeman looks on with a smirk having enjoyed a fine start to the season, but he should be wary that the luck could eventually run out for him and his side

Yet why would the board do that if they think the high wire act can be accomplished? Once a club is prepared to deal at Southampton’s level, they will always be a target.

Everton and Tottenham are selling clubs, too, but the odd player, not half the team. Even then it has hindered their ability to break into the top four; at Southampton the downside could be considerably worse.

Watching James Ward-Prowse pulling the strings against Liverpool, it was impossible not to imagine board members wondering how much they will get for him one day. There will be a replacement off the production line, after all.

This way the Championship lies. Not this season, maybe not next season, but ultimately.

The board need to realise Southampton are bucking a trend through unique circumstances. Continue down this path and eventually the luck runs out. It always does.

Southampton must be careful; fire sales can still have a long-term effect on the club, as Leeds found out in the early naughties as Jonathan Woodgate and other stars left Elland Road

Morgan Schneiderlin (second right) celebrates after scoring, and Koeman has furiously resisted his sale

We should be glad Andy is his own man

Since backing the wrong horse in the vote for Scottish independence the hounds of hell and Middle England have been on the tail of Andy Murray.

Not just him, but his whole family. Bookmakers now put mother Judy’s chances of winning Strictly Come Dancing roughly on the same level as that of a gangsta rapper, with gold teeth and a criminal record.

Her son will never be forgiven, apparently. He is ungrateful. He owes us. How dare he, from his lovely home in Wentworth, declare for Scottish independence?

Andy Murray, here after winning Olympic gold, came out in support of Scottish independence

It does not matter that Murray, as a Scot, is entitled to an opinion; or that he was driven mad to give it, from the moment the referendum date was announced. When he finally offered the view sought, and it turned out to be a little more radical than expected, the reaction was hysterical.

How dare he have a thought that does not chime with the majority? How dare he be his own man? Good grief, he didn’t even tell his publicist before declaring. That’s the last thing a debate about independence needs. Independent thought.

So here’s what Murray owes Great Britain: nothing. And Scotland: nothing, too. This is a self-made man. He may feel pride in his country, whether representing Great Britain or imagining Scotland apart, but he is in nobody’s debt, and certainly not that of the Lawn Tennis Association, his sport’s governing body in Britain.

The LTA did not make Murray. If the LTA knew how to create tennis players, his achievements would not stand alone, post-War. At 15, do not forget, Murray was so taken with the LTA’s methods he decamped to the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona. So Scotland did not school him, either. He owes as much to Catalonia as Caledonia.

Murray signs Scottish flags after returning to his hometown of Dunblane following his Olympic victory in 2012

To hear Murray talk about his upbringing in tennis is to appreciate his singularity.

‘Every competition seemed to take place about six hours from where we lived,’ he told me. ‘We were outsiders all the time, so we became our own little team. There was nothing in Scotland. No tournaments and no players.’

He recalls being part of this strange little family at junior competitions, down from the north, apart from the rest. He was a loner in Spain, too. The only English speaker, barely exchanging a word until brought into a wider group by Dani Vallverdu, a Venezuelan who remains one of his closest friends.

So let’s not pretend that Murray is where he is because of the Union, or any British or Scottish way. It is very unusual to become a great tennis player in a country without pedigree. ‘There was,’ he admitted, ‘nobody with my background.’

And now he lives in Wentworth, Surrey, and not Dunblane, Stirling, where he was born and where 59.8 per cent of the area population voted no to independence. And so what? If your job depended on flying around the world, where would you live? Off the A9 bypass en route to Perth, or 15 minutes from Heathrow Airport?

Murray on court on the day he tweeted his support for Scottish independence. His countrymen voted 'No'

Murray, like many of us, resides where the work is. He has a house in Florida, too, because it is conducive to warm-weather training in winter. A lot of Britain’s best golfers also live there, for professional reasons. It will not compromise their fervour at this week’s Ryder Cup.

Murray is a national treasure, whether he wants part of this nation or not, because in sport’s world of shallow conformity, he dares to be different.

The country warmed to him when he cried on Centre Court, but those tears were not for us. They were not part of a strategy or by request of the marketing department. They were real, just as the snarls are real, or the dour demeanour that is sometimes mistaken for humourlessness.

Murray does not smile to order, cry to order or declare to order. His agent did not have a clue that he was going to back Scottish independence at 1am on polling day. And if, as is suggested, he should have thought of the harm it would do to his image, then what is the point of independence with those rules of engagement? You are free to answer any question in the way we want you to, at the time we decree, and after first checking with your sponsors.

Hell, we should all want to break away from that.

Arsenal are still banking on pot luck

Some Arsenal followers remain in denial over the flaws in UEFA’s Champions League seeding system. Having been undone so comprehensively by Borussia Dortmund this week, they cite Atletico Madrid’s upset against Olympiacos as proof that one defeat does not make a team unworthy of inclusion in privileged pot one.

Of course it doesn’t. If seeding came with a guarantee the rankings would never alter, and the Wimbledon men’s singles final would be contested by the top two each year.

Borussia Dortmund striker Ciro Immobile finishes off a great run to score their first against Arsenal

It doesn’t work like that. When Roger Federer and Andy Roddick met in 2004, it was the first time that the top seeds had contested the final since 1982.

So Atletico’s 3-2 defeat by Olympiacos was just one of those things that happen.

Arsenal’s defeat in Dortmund, however, is symptomatic of an ill-conceived system. Under UEFA’s benign gaze, Arsenal’s presence in pot one invariably affords them at least two weak group opponents, whom they overcome to take a place in the knockout stages and earn just enough co-efficient points to maintain their elevated position the following year.

Shocks happen; yet Arsenal’s Champions League narrative is entirely predictable, and that is why the seeding rules have to change.

Roger Federer and Andy Roddick met in the 2004 Wimbledon final; the first time that the top seeds had contested the final since 1982

Fair play catch 22 leaves Rangers in double jeopardy

Further proof that Financial Fair Play creates the very problem it purports to solve can be found in the punishment hanging over Queens Park Rangers. The Football League wishes to fine the club in the region of £40million for debts that were run up trying to stay in a higher division.

Rangers are adamant that this is unfair — and it is, because even the League admit the rules will now change — and are poised to make a legal challenge.

QPR spent big to get back into the Premier League and have invested again to stay up

The League say that, if Rangers refuse to pay, they will be barred from entering the Championship or any Football League competition if they are relegated this season, meaning they would be bumped all the way down to the Conference.

So what are Rangers to do? If they are in danger of relegation come January — and judging by some of their performances this season it is highly unlikely they will be comfortable — Rangers will have to throw more money at their squad in a bid to survive. The very practice FFP is intended to discourage.

No confidence was expressed in Edward Lord at a meeting of the FA Inclusion Advisory Board

And while we're at it...

It takes some doing to get sacked from a body dedicated to inclusion, but Edward Lord has managed it. Too late, Heather Rabbatts and her team at the Football Association have realised the one agenda the tiresome Lord pursues above all others — self-promotion.

A hastily-convened meeting of the Inclusion Advisory Board, comprising Graeme Le Saux and Paul Elliott among others, expressed no confidence in Lord, who was fired. Naturally, he is consulting lawyers.

This follows a shameless interview Lord gave to a national newspaper, which the IAB believes is the latest in a line of protocol breaches with regard to public statements.

Having coyly noted his nominations for Campaigner of the Year and Hero of the Year — yes, seriously — at the European Diversity Awards, the article quoted Lord’s view that football is lagging behind in its battle to tackle discrimination.

Lord cited the firm and exemplary action taken in other sports. The NBA had banned Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, for making racist comments and the Amateur Swimming Association had handled Tom Daley’s coming out in ‘a very positive way’, he said.

And the chairman of the ASA as it performed this marvellous deed? None other than Edward Lord, OBE. As the FA discovered, self-praise is no recommendation.



