It took a 9-0 humiliation for the manager to switch to his beloved 4-2-2-2 system but improvement has been dramatic
For Ralph Hasenhüttl and Southampton, the first three months of the season felt like an ordeal but the tone had been set from the very start. The manager took his team to Burnley on the opening weekend, full of optimism and with his first pre-season at the club behind him, only to lose 3-0 after a second-half capitulation.
“You have seven weeks to prepare for the first game and then you lose the first game and that means the seven weeks were shit,” Hasenhüttl says as he prepared for the return fixture with Burnley at St Mary’s on Saturday. “This is a clear message.”
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