Southampton: 2019/20 pre-season – Guangzhou R&F in profile

A select few of Southampton players have been flown out to Asia to play Chinese  side Guangzhou R&F as they look to keep the Saints good pre-season form going.

Ralph Hasenhuttl has selected twenty players to bring with him over to China to face the Blue Lions, with names such as Fraser Forster, Yan Valery, Maya Yoshida, Josh Sims, Che Adams, and Shane long the most noticeable names flying out.

These players, along with a selection of others from the squad flying to Macau, will then join up with the rest of the team in Ireland after the game.

The game, which will kick off on Tuesday at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, will not be played at the Yuexiushan Stadium (the home of Guangzhou R&F), but instead at the Estadio Campo Desportivo – home of Macau football club.

Looking at the Saints opponents, the Blue Lions currently lie ninth out of sixteen teams in the Chinese Super League after nineteen games.

It could be suggested that the Chinese outfit are in rather poor form, losing two of their last three, including a 5-0 defeat against Guangzhou Evergrande on the same day the Saints beat Preston North End.

Southampton’s opponents are managed by former Red Star Belgrade and Marseille midfielder  Dragan Stojkovic – who has been at the helm since 2015. Under his management, Guangzhou have finished fourteenth, fifth, and tenth in the CSL. Stojkovic has had one other managerial spell since his retirement from playing in 2001, managing Nagoya Grampus between 2008-2013. In this time, the former Yugoslavia international lead the Japanese side to their first ever domestic title, earning him the manager of the year award in Japan for 2010.

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When analysing their squad, they do not completely fall into the Chinese League stereotype of brining in as many big name foreign players as they are allowed (with four foreign players being the current maximum) – with only one name in the squad being a household name to Premier League football fans. Moussa Dembele, formerly of Champions League finalists Tottenham Hotspur, made the move to the Chinese side in the January of 2019 for a reported fee of eleven million pounds .

Despite the Belgian international being the most well know name to those in England, their most impactful player in the last few seasons has been Israeli Eran Zahavi. Since joining in 2016, the former Maccabi Tel Aviv player has scored eighty goals in eighty-eight games, winning the leagues golden boot trophy in 2017 (scoring twenty-seven).

Not bringing in lots of big names could be due to their financial situation. The Blue lions may not have the funds to pay both the transfer fee of a big foreign name, the tax of the transfer fee (the same amount as the fee they have paid for the player) and the exponentially increasing wage demands of that player.

As a result, players such as Eran Zahavi, Dusko Tosic, and Dia Saba (three of their four foreign players) are much cheaper alternative foreign players that demand lower wages but still add quality and depth to the squad without completely breaking the bank.

As this friendly bares very little importance, with the trip over to China more of a marketing stunt than one that holds high importance to on field affairs, expect quite a low intensity game between the two sides – especially with Guangzhou R&F midway through their competitive season and will not be looking for any of their players to run themselves into the ground to avoid injury that could hamper their domestic campaign, and the Saints fielding a side that will be nowhere close to that of what will face Burnley on the first game of the Premier League season.