Southampton: Saints win in China after positive visit – but at a cost?

After a trip that saw the launch of main club sponsor LD Sports, Southampton beat Guangzhou R&F convincingly 4-0 on Tuesday afternoon.

Goals from spectacular efforts from Che Adams and Shane Long saw Saints into a 2-0 lead after 17 minutes, whilst Yan Valery and Christoph Klarer rounded off the scoring and a comfortable victory.

This was the club’s third official pre-season friendly after a 1-1 draw with Austrian Bundesliga side SCR Altach and a 3-1 win over Preston North End on Saturday. A behind closed doors game also resulted in a 3-0 win over Championship outfit Brentford.

Whilst the trip to China has been a good one from a commercial point of view, it could have been seen as inconvenient in other ways.

Ralph Hasenhuttl’s opinion on it was clear after his interview with German news outlet Sport Bild a little while ago.

The Austrian implied that it was not ideal considering the work that needed to be put in to prepare his players and mould his team ahead of an important 2019/20 season.

Then the squad that he chose to take also showed that he felt that majority of his senior players should go along to Ireland for a training camp closer to home.

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Fraser Forster, Yan Valery, Maya Yoshida, Che Adams and Shane Long were the main first-team players to fly to Asia, whilst the other 15 names were youth academy prospects given a chance to impress Hasenhuttl.

The point is, Hasenhuttl would have wanted all of his players together with just three and a half weeks to go until the start of the new Premier League season.

He has a lot of things to get across – not least the ins and outs of his 4-2-2-2 system that may be implemented for 2019/20 – but still has some time with two friendlies against Feyenoord and 1.FC Koln to come.

Pre-season has been a positive one so far though even if the China trip had its disadvantages. Good displays have come so far and Saints could well be a strong side against in this coming campaign.

However, they must accept that they will need to work long trips and foreign tours into their plans. Building the commercial side of the club will be vital if Saints are to continue to compete with other sides in the rapidly growing Premier League.