Southampton: Mark Hughes tipped as early favourite for Saints job

Following last night’s sacking of Mauricio Pellegrino, former-Stoke City boss Mark Hughes has been named as the favourite to take over at Southampton.

With the dust having settled following the Saints’ embarrassment at the hands of Newcastle on Saturday, the club’s supporters though that if Pellegrino was to be sacked, they club would’ve already done so.

However, last night the Southampton board finally made a stand, sacking the man who has won just five of his 30 league games in charge.

With no league games for just under three weeks, Southampton have the perfect opportunity for a new manager to implement his methods before the crunch period continues. Whilst the FA Cup quarter-final game this weekend poses a challenge in the form of Wigan, Southampton should dispatch the League One outfit on paper.

But back to the matter in hand and it’s being reported by several media outlets that the Saints are keen on Mark Hughes as their replacement for the Argentine.

The Welshman most recently managed Stoke City before being sacked earlier this season, having been boss for a lengthy five years. Whilst Hughes’ Stoke have tackled relegation in recent campaigns the 54-year-old received praise for bringing in creative, attacking players after Tony Pulis’ reign.

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However before that Hughes had several short-term stints firstly in charge of the newly-funded Manchester City before moving on to both Fulham and QPR. It should be noted that the man has been sacked from three of his last four managerial positions.

Once a Southampton player, Hughes has unfortunately developed a reputation for being a spending manager – having often brought in a substantial amount of players during his reigns with the aforementioned teams.

With the Saints’ supporters still keen on a manager who will lend time to the development of youth, this will cast doubts in their heads especially if Hughes is handed a reasonably lengthy contract.

At this point in time it remains unclear whether the Southampton board are looking for an interim boss or someone to take charge of the club for years to come. Hughes – in addition to other mentioned named like Slaven Bilic – don’t fit the normal model when it comes to Saints managers and therefore it could be seen that the side are looking for someone short term before reaching out to a lesser-known candidate in the summer.