CONFRONTED with his own ill fate, Ralph Hasenhuttl must have feared the worst as he left St Mary’s Stadium on the night of Friday October 25. The Austrian had just watched his Southampton suffer a record-breaking Premier League defeat – no team had ever lost a home match by nine goals before – sinking them into the bottom three. This was after heavy home defeats to Bournemouth and Chelsea.
It was difficult to envisage how Hasenhuttl would escape the spiral that engulfs so many managers. Back-to-back games away to Manchester City immediately after the humiliation at Leicester’s hands certainly didn’t help matters as the Saints went eight league games without a win over September, October and into November. With or without Hasenhuttl at the helm, Southampton expected a fight for their Premier League lives.
Such doomsday predictions now look a little foolish. Saturday’s away win over Leicester City continued what has been a remarkable two months for Southampton with Hasenhuttl leading his side to league victories over Aston Villa, Chelsea, Norwich City, Tottenham and Watford, also coming within seconds of three points away to Arsenal. Far from being in danger, the Saints are now sitting comfortably in 12th place, level on points with Arsenal and Everton and just four points off the top six.
Southampton have turned around their season after the 9-0 defeat against Leicester City.
They're now level on points with Arsenal and Everton.
How impressed have you been with Ralph Hasenhuttl? #bbcfootball pic.twitter.com/ph1RFiQZKL
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) January 12, 2020
The turnaround has been remarkable. While Southampton spent the first half of the season worrying about their top flight status, they could now turn into one of the success stories of the second half. They boast the quality to claim a place in the top half and once they have that foothold a late top six challenge could even be within the realms of possibility.
“When you get good results you can feel also in the sessions that the quality is rising and the self-confidence is rising and the belief is back,” Hasenhuttl explained when asked how big a difference recent results have made to the mood around St Mary’s Stadium. “When you have clean sheets against Tottenham and Chelsea and win, then it feels fantastic for the players.
“But I still don’t have the feeling that they are not hungry anymore, so we stay on hunting and we know that it’s only short-term where we took a lot of points. I don’t see the reason why we should stop or lean back now because this is an important period of the season and the more points you take now, the less pressure you have in the end. We did it fantastic so far but we are still way off being in a comfort zone – we don’t want to be.”
This is the sort of ambition Southampton hired Hasenhuttl to exude in the first place. After all, the Austrian arrived in England with a strong reputation following his work in the Bundesliga as RB Leipzig head coach. Highly rated within the game, performances and results over the first few months of the season now look to be little more than an anomaly as Southampton improve with almost every match they play.
Of course, Hasenhuttl has been helped by the astonishing goal scoring form of Danny Ings, with James Ward-Prowse also finding a rich vein of form in recent weeks, but Hasenhuttl’s shift to a back four and the adoption of a back-to-basis approach has re-energised a squad certainly good enough to compete in the Premier League’s top half. From Moussa Djenepo to Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Stuart Armstrong to Cedric Soares, there’s real reason to be positive about the Saints’ future.
While so many others around them (see Arsenal, Everton, Tottenham and Watford) pulled the trigger on their managers, Southampton kept faith with Hasenhuttl and are now being rewarded for that. The first half of the season was one to forget for the St Mary’s Stadium side. The second half, though, could turn out to be one they don’t want to forget.
