Southampton: Hasenhuttl reveals his commitment to his project with Saints

Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has turned round the fortunes of the South Coast club in his time in England so far.

The Austrian joined back in December before leading his new side to Premier League safety, and it will be promising news to Saints fans that he appears committed to the task at hand at St Mary’s.

It is perhaps foolish to think that the 51-year-old will be there forever but his recent words seem to suggest him wanting to see out his two-and-a-half-year deal and provide some stability once again.

Speaking to German news outlet Sport Bild, Hasenhuttl said:

"“Right now I do think I’m working as a coach in Germany again. In England, the coaches enjoy a very different status… I have an extremely high job satisfaction. I do not think about what’s coming to Southampton. I’ve found a job here that fills me up, and I’m not here to run away. I want to make a name for myself in this league.”"

In his time in Germany, Hasenhuttl built up a reputation for working with young players and forging strong teams capable of reaching their full potential.

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He led Ingolstadt 04 to the Bundesliga back in 2014/15 and an 11th-placed finish in the top-flight the following year before moving onto RB Leipzig.

There he led the newly promoted club to 2nd and 6th consecutively from 2016-2018, and a disagreement with the board there saw him move on to find another project.

Hasenhuttl’s success in his fairly short managerial career to date reportedly saw him contacted by Bayern Munich last summer, but he is understood to have ruled himself out due to a weak CV that doesn’t contain enough titles as of yet.

Making this sort of self-judgement requires a lot of humility and that perhaps sums up the man himself.

What is for sure it that Saints now have a superb managerial talent at their disposal and they must give him the tools that he needs to put his plans in place.

He is said to want a tighter squad in comparison to the currently bloated group on offer, and needs specific players to create a line-up tailored for his style of play.

Attacker Moussa Djenepo arrived last week for around £14m from Standard Liege but other positions will also ideally need to be filled this summer.