Southampton: Hughes to Hasenhüttl – Swapping Mediocrity for Innovation

Southampton sacked Mark Hughes after their awful start to the Premier League season, where they picked up just 1 win and 9 points in 14 matches.

When the Saints hired Mark Hughes in March of this year, many saw it as a mediocre appointment which essentially invited relegation to the St. Mary’s Stadium. Hughes had a couple of good seasons with Stoke, but his final one was an absolute calamity, as he got sacked at the midway point of the season.

Hughes’ style of play is not one that fits particularly well with the identity Southampton have spent so much time building through managers like Mauricio Pochettino, Ronald Koeman, and Claude Puel, which made his appointment in March all the more intriguing.

The assumptions were right, Hughes turned Southampton into nothing but bottom-feeders, which is not what a club that took the Premier League by storm to finish 8th and 7th in its first 2 seasons after promotion in 2013-14 and 14-15 would have expected.

What the Saints did correctly though, was reverse their mistake relatively early on in the season. We are heading into the busiest and most crucial period, meaning the club couldn’t afford to keep playing poorly and be in the relegation zone after the New Year. They still have plenty of time to turn their season around under their new manager.

Former RB Leipzig manager, the innovative and modern Ralph Hasenhüttl, is the man chosen to lead this team forward, and the Saints couldn’t have picked someone better.

Mario Lemina, Pierre-Emile Hojberg, James Ward-Prowse, Nathan Redmond, Cedric Soares – here’s an example of a few Southampton players that deserve so much better than the club have given them over the past 9 months or so. Some of the players have been so underwhelming, and Hasenhüttl has the potential to completely reverse that. He is the exact type of innovative coach that made the Saints so successful just a few years ago, and it is so refreshing to see them go back in this direction.

Hasenhüttl made a name for himself between 2016 and 2018, when he was manager at Bundesliga overachievers RB Leipzig, where he finished as Bundesliga runner-up in his first season. The Austrian oversaw the development of some massive names, including Germany’s starting striker Timo Werner, Liverpool midfield ace Naby Keita, and Swedish playmaker Emil Forsberg. He has experience in getting the most out of talented, young players, which is exactly what Southampton will want out of him.

He is a manager that utilizes more-modern methods, such as pressing from the front and seamless transitional play. Many clubs in the Premier League, such as Everton, Watford, West Ham, and Wolves are succeeding in The Top Flight with modern, foreign managers, and it seems Southampton are looking to follow the same blueprint.

It may not be the most seamless transition, but you can expect this Southampton side to be far more entertaining and energetic under Ralph Hasenhüttl than they were under Mark Hughes. It is a major upgrade for the club and its players, as the Saints look to dig their way out of a looming relegation battle.

Yes, the weekend past wasn’t much to go by, but a better display on a whole with a small elapse in the embers of the tie was a fatal blow. But more positives to be taken from the clash than negatives.