Guardian writers’ predicted position: 13th (NB: this is not necessarily Ben Fisher’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Last season’s position: 16th
Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker): 1,000-1
As well as Bohemian Rhapsody, one of Ralph Hasenhüttl’s go-to ditties on his Bluthner grand piano is Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence and the relative calm surrounding Southampton this summer is music to the ears of supporters left drained by successive staccato seasons. There are still imperfections, of course, but fans have not felt like this for some time; there is a hum of synthesised, whirring excitement at how Hasenhüttl could fare in his first full season in charge, given how he not only transformed a seemingly doomed side inside six months but reinvigorated a whole club, an entire city.
The off-season has not passed without incident, though, with Hasenhüttl’s assistant, Danny Rohl, departing at the end of last month and a boardroom reshuffle leading to the majority owner, Jisheng Gao, replacing the departed Ralph Krueger as chairman, with the chief executive, Martin Semmens, and the director of football, Ross Wilson, who has been promoted to the club’s board, assuming more responsibility following Krueger’s exit after six years.
The board have successfully freshened up a stale squad with two new arrivals: Che Adams, a powerful striker, and Moussa Djenepo, a raw winger whom should restore an element of unpredictability to this side, for a combined total of almost £30m. Danny Ings has also signed permanently from Liverpool on a four-year contract for £19m. But their work is not done: the squad remains lopsided, with Fraser Forster, Guido Carrillo, Mario Lemina and Charlie Austin among the dispensable high-earners still on the books.
Southampton’s squad is in a funny place, whereby they have five senior centre-backs but ostensibly require at least one more, with the occasionally erratic Maya Yoshida, the club’s longest-serving player after James Ward-Prowse, the most trusty these days. A bloated squad does not necessarily translate to every base being covered either; the spine of the side is unconvincing and they appear light in wide areas. The exciting bit for a club with a rich history of leaning on its academy is that they have a manager happy to scratch beneath the surface.
There is another wave of talent determined to burst into the first team in the same way Yan Valery did so impressively last season. Callum Slattery, who has been capped by England at youth level, has caught Hasenhüttl’s eye in pre-season, as have the teenagers Will Smallbone and Jake Vokins, who will provide competition for Ryan Bertrand at left-back following Matt Targett’s departure.
When family and friends come over to his city-centre apartment to celebrate a victory, Hasenhüttl occasionally treats them to a rendition of Queen or Elton John on the piano and the former RB Leipzig coach quickly won over supporters too. Free drinks vouchers, overzealous touchline celebrations, a supercharged style and sitcom sound bites – “If you want a guarantee, buy a washing machine” – endeared himself to fans but he did not only talk the talk. After watching Southampton wilt against Tottenham at Wembley, the size of the task facing him was clear. By the time Southampton lost at Cardiff in his first match – Hasenhüttl had to wait 90 minutes for the so-called new manager bounce to kick in – they were 19th with nine points from 16 games.
They finished five points clear of the drop but there are issues to address: no player has reached double figures in the Premier League since Sadio Mané three years ago, while home form, particularly against teams they are expected to give a run for their money, remains a concern (Southampton have won only 15 of their past 57 league matches at St Mary’s). The arrival of Adams from Birmingham City represents a major boost. Named after Che Guevara and released by Coventry at 14, the former Birmingham forward has the tools to transfer his goalscoring form into the Premier League, in the same way Callum Wilson prospered along the south coast at Bournemouth.
Adams enjoyed a promising pre-season, scoring three times, including 116 seconds into his debut, and will likely start alongside Danny Ings. Whether Hasenhüttl can coax more out of Sofiane Boufal, who has been reintegrated after a loan at Celta Vigo, could help. Hasenhüttl transformed Nathan Redmond from a scapegoat into the club’s player of the year last season, while Ward-Prowse thrived on regular game-time, earning an England recall in the process.
The captain, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, is a classy performer but, as Southampton found out to their detriment last season, there is no time to establish if they have sufficiently bolstered, to discover if they are suitably equipped to avoid another relegation scrap or whether they will sink or swim. “I think it will be more difficult [this season],” Hasenhüttl said, “because we will have four or five months of intensive work to do and then normally you go into the winter break in Germany, but here you come into the most demanding and intensive period. That will be a very big question, how we manage this.”
The way in which Hasenhüttl galvanised a dejected group of players was impressive, with St Mary’s transformed from a breeding ground of pessimism into one of positivity. Supporters are hardly giddy with enthusiasm but Hasenhüttl has generated a palpable degree of confidence around the place, in the same way Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman did before him. As Mel Morris, the Derby owner, recently said discussing Frank Lampard’s credentials: “Teams fall apart because belief gets shattered, belief disappears, belief that ‘we can do it’, belief in the manager’s tactics. They are the things that cause you those dips and it is how you bounce back and get the belief reinstated that is the key.” There are no such problems with Hasenhüttl, who did his coaching badges alongside Jürgen Klopp.
It would be easy to say early away trips to Burnley and Brighton could set the tone for the season but home matches against Liverpool and then Manchester United in August may garner a better indication of what lies ahead. It was against those teams that Southampton came alive in Pochettino’s pomp and in Koeman’s reign, when they went marching into such games with bona fide intentions of winning them and with a whiff of invincibility, no matter the opponents in the tunnel.
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That daring mentality has already served Hasenhüttl well since picking up Southampton by the scruff of the neck in December, beating Arsenal and then Tottenham at St Mary’s. But this season, Hasenhüttl knows, will be a different endurance test.
