Ralph Hasenhuttl on thin ice as Southampton head to free-scoring Manchester City
The irony will probably not be lost on Ralph Hasenhuttl if his last match in charge of Southampton proves to be Saturday’s trip to Manchester City.
The Premier League champions are the team that Saints’ new regime has looked to more than any other in recent months as it has sought to shake up the flagging club.
First they poached Joe Shields, the head of recruitment at a City academy whose alumni include England stars Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho.
Not unsurprisingly, Shields returned to his old club to sign some of their most promising youth prospects in midfielder Romeo Lavia, goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu, left-back Juan Larios and winger Sam Edozie.
Both Lavia, 18, and Bazunu, 20, slotted straight into the first team and have quickly become key figures, the former’s recent hamstring injury notwithstanding.
Southampton’s pivot to youth has come since Sport Republic, the multi-club group backed by Serbian billionaire Dragan Solak took over in January.
The ownership group’s chief executive is Rasmus Ankersen, the Dane who played a key role in engineering Brentford’s rise alongside Matthew Benham.
Brentford’s ascent to the Premier League was built on innovative strategies including cutting edge use of data and the replacement of their youth system with a B team.
Ankersen appears to have chosen a different course this time, one that has focused on dramatically lowering the age of Saints’ squad.
In addition to the four recruits from City, Southampton signed highly-rated young Germany defender Armel Bella-Kotchap and France Under-21 forward Sekou Mara during the summer.
Hasenhuttl has shown a willingness to incorporate the new guard, with Bella-Kotchap quickly becoming a regular, Mara forcing his way into the XI and Larios and Edozie making cameos.
It has not arrested a slump in form that set in towards the end of the last season, however. Southampton have lost 10 and won just two of their last 14 Premier League games, and sit 16th in the table, three points off the bottom.
Hasenhuttl cited his team’s lack of experience after last weekend’s 2-1 home defeat to Everton – a match in which they took the lead only to concede twice in three minutes.
The Austrian saw his coaching team replaced over the summer, a move that did not bode well for his long-term prospects, and reports this week suggest that the end of his almost four years at the helm may be imminent.
If results are the deciding factor then Hasenhuttl could be forgiven for holding out little hope of an improvement at the Etihad Stadium.
There cannot be any team in the world in more fearsome form than City, who appear to have only become more dangerous with the addition of the deadly Erling Haaland.
Pep Guardiola’s team are on a run of five consecutive wins in all competitions, a sequence in which they have averaged four goals per game.
Haaland, meanwhile, is putting up the sort of numbers only seen from Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at their peak.
The Norway striker has scored 20 times already this season for club and country, including five in his last two games.
Against Southampton he will be seeking a hat-trick of Premier League hat-tricks in successive home matches.
Hasenhuttl may derive some comfort from the fact that his team held City to a 0-0 draw in this fixture last term, but even a repeat of that result looks unlikely to save him.