Ralph Hasenhuttl has pinpointed the 9-0 defeat to Leicester as a turning point in Southampton’s campaign.
Things looked extremely bleak at St Mary’s back at the end of October, when Leicester turned up on the south coast and equalled the largest ever Premier League victory with a 9-0 win, a result that embarrassed the Saints in front of their own supporters.
Jamie Vardy and Ayoze Perez both scored hat-tricks as Brendan Rodgers’ side went into the half-time break 5-0 up, and while some teams may have crumbled after a result like that, Hasenhuttl has instead navigated a turnaround.
What did he say?
Hasenhuttl told Sky Sports: “When you see life after a 9-0 defeat, then you lose any fear you may have as a manager because you get a signal from the club they believe in what you are doing.
“I never really thought about the pressure on me, but what I could do was to try to take it off the team.
“And the way we developed our game after that experience and where we are in the table now is the best response we could have given.”
Hard to argue with Hasenhuttl
The former RB Leipzig boss is spot on.
When you suffer a defeat as humiliating as the Saints did, what more do you have to lose?
Instead of moping around and feeling sorry for themselves, Southampton instead manoeuvred themselves into a much better position in the Premier League as they currently sit 15th with 22 points to their name, compared to 18th place with eight points after the Leicester thrashing.
Since that game, the Saints have collected an impressive 14 points out of a possible 30, and it is particularly interesting to hear Hasenhuttl pinpoint the 9-0 defeat as a positive moment instead of a negative one.
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It is a testament to the Austrian’s managerial qualities as well as his squad’s attitude that they managed to channel such a heavy loss into a catalyst for an upturn in form, and the challenge now is to keep that momentum going – only four points separate the Saints from the bottom three.
In other news, this Southampton target would help Hasenhuttl kill two birds with one stone…