6 days to Premier League season: Southampton have Puel set up for baptism by fire

• More: Richard Jolly's predictions | Fixtures in UAE time

The National's sports team is counting down the days until defending champions Leicester City take on newly promoted Hull City in the opening fixture of the 2016/17 English Premier League season by looking at one team a day. Today, Southampton.

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The South Coast club are rightly regarded as one of the league’s more progressive clubs in terms of infrastructure and philosophy, but another transfer window and another batch of stars have left for pastures new.

Graziano Pelle has left for the Chinese Super League – and let’s face it, who would turn down a wage increase of 225 per cent? – Sadio Mane, in a club record transfer to Liverpool, and Victor Wanyama has linked up with his former Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham. But, perhaps the more potentially damaging departure is that of the manager Ronald Koeman to Everton. The Dutchman led the club to a sixth-placed finish last term, missing out on a European spot by a mere three points.

His replacement, Frenchman Claude Puel, has a modest record managing clubs in his homeland and much of that success occurred at the start of the century. He inherits a team shorn of arguably its three best performers last season as Southampton look more and more like a club that cashes in on its best talents. The Frenchman is in for a baptism of fire.

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Previously

• Hull City: Promoted club had unstable summer

• Middlesbrough: Hopes lie largely in Spaniards

• Burnley: Third time the charm?

• Sunderland: Moyes the make-or-break factor in survival hopes

• Bournemouth: Well placed to avoid 'second season syndrome'

• Crystal Palace: Time to deliver on all that talent

• West Bromwich Albion: Another season of mid-table mediocrity

• Watford: Early fixtures will set the tone — for better or worse

• Swansea City: Swans need a striker, and stability

• Everton: In good hands with Koeman