Southampton’s Premier League Struggles: Jack Cork Discusses Potential Turnaround and Key Influences

Cork, who was relegated with Burnley following promotion last season, believes Southampton's season highlights the growing gap between the Championship and Premier League.  The St Mary's side are bottom of the Premier League on six points having won the Championship play-off final last season. They currently sit 10 points adrift of safety after 20 games and have a -32 goal difference, the worst in the division by some stretch. Cork insisted back-to-back wins can always transform a season and pointed towards Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Charlie Taylor and Adam Lallana as good players for the dressing room. Adam Lallana re-signed for Southampton on a one-year deal in the summer. (Image: Matt Watson / Southampton FC).He told BBC Radio Solent: "When you are growing up as a footballer, nobody wants to be the journeyman footballer. You want to have a base. "It never really works like that. It's football. You could see the way Southampton were going with players coming and going. "It's good when it's working sometimes you see clubs, Brighton do it now, and you wonder how long it's going to work. "It's difficult because Southampton is such a good club but if you go down to the Championship, it shows how big the gap is to the Premier League. "Although the club has changed a lot, I've got a lot of friends and people I played with still at Southampton.  "It shows that, no matter how good you are in the Championship, you come up and it takes you by surprise. "The athleticism, the quality and the style teams play - if you don't get used to it quickly, it's hard to get going." Jack Cork played over 150 games for Southampton. Cork continued: "The thing I've found with the Premier League over the last 10 years is that two wins is six points, it's as simple as that. "If you get half a run together then you are out of it and the confidence is up. You are two or three weeks away from completely flipping your season and staying up. "(Staying up) is a tough thing to do, but if you can nail down... and the players I know that are there, have that about them. "Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Charlie Taylor and Adam Lallana have got that attitude. Hopefully, Saints can grind it out and change their season around in the next couple of weeks." Cork made 152 appearances for Southampton across two stints, first joining on loan from Chelsea before being signed permanently by Nigel Adkins. He was a member of the promotion-winning Championship squad and currently works as a player-coach for Burnley's under-21s.