This past weekend Southampton were well and truly played off the pitch by an out-of-form Hammers side – but we can’t judge Hughes purely on that performance.
Considering the 3-0 defeat against Newcastle United got Mauricio Pellegrino the sack and this Saturday’s defeat against West Ham was – if anything – worse, the jury are bound to be out regarding Mark Hughes.
The Welshman was far from an inspiring appointment following his arrival, having been branded as one of the many domestic managers who rotate the league club to club over the past decade or so.
However Hughes is no-nonsense man who will have hopefully given the players are thorough talking to following his arrival around a month ago, something which was desperately needed after the aforementioned Argentine’s sub-standard reign.
The performance against the Hammers was shocking, there’s no denying that – normally consistent players like Mario Lemina and Pierre-Emile Hojberg enjoyed particularly bad afternoons as the Saints failed to register a shot on target.
Next: West Ham vs. Saints: Preview
Therefore it’s easy to say that Hughes isn’t going to change much in his short time at Southampton. It’s easy to jump the gun and insist that the club is still doomed but we can’t judge the 54-year-old so quickly.
Say what you want about Wigan being a League One side, but they have one of the tightest defences in their league and had also beaten more Premier League teams than the Saints had to get to the quarter-finals. The way that Hughes rallied the side to perform in the second-half deserves more plaudits and shouldn’t be forgotten about so soon.
It’s easy to say that it was more of the same but the West Ham game should – at this stage – be taken as a one off, as the players need a fresh start after Pellegrino’s sacking. Granted, the same players who have under-performed all season were once again below par, with Gabbiadini subbed at half-time and Tadic poor throughout.
The Saints have an extremely tricky couple of weeks coming up with games against Chelsea and Arsenal but at this point Hughes can’t be judged – there was enough positives from the Wigan game to cancel out what we saw against the Hammers.
We owe it to the ex-Southampton player to cast our judgments once we’ve seen how the Saints play in the league a few more times – only problem is, it may be too late at that point.