Hasenhuttl plan to give Saints kids big chance

vSOUTHAMPTON KICK OFF 6pm

RALPH HASENHUTTL says players quitting Southampton this summer will give his youngsters an opportunity to shine.

Hasenhuttl stripped Pierre-emile Hojbjerg of the captaincy ahead of the midfielder’s expected exit, and he could be followed out by Cedric Soares, Maya Yoshida and Jannik Vestergaard.

But Hasenhuttl (above) is willing to blood some of the club’s best youngsters during the run-in, and wants to make the Saints Academy the envy of the world again.

He said: “The situation with five subs and the fact that a few players are leaving us in the summer, maybe, gives them a chance.

“We will look at who are the players that can help us immediately and give them time, trust and a chance to show up.

“This is a special way. For us there are not a lot of alternatives because we cannot ask for £50million transfers every year.

“You sometimes lose your talent to others. But there is so much talent and even for us it is possible for us to bring good players in.

“We will especially try to bring in young players, develop them and as a team be successful.”

Stars like Theo Walcott (above), Gareth Bale, Adam Lallana and Alex Oxlade-chamberlain once rolled off the Saints production line. And Hasenhuttl, whose side take on Norwich tonight, wants to make it great again after spending lockdown revamping the club’s training regime.

He said: “This was a big project we started in the beginning of the coronavirus break and we had lots of time to work on this.

“It will help us for the incoming players, the youth players, for the youth coaches.

“Everybody knows now how we want to play, to develop our players.

“But this hunt for the most talented players gets tougher and tougher. “Big teams have changed their philosophy and don’t always want to pay big money for just popular players. They also want to take big talents. “This market is quite hot and that makes it difficult.

“What you have to do is try to develop the players you have as quick as possible.

“If they are not individually the best you can develop them in a tactical way so they know immediately what they have to do when they come up to the first team.

“That helps massively to make a bigger and quicker impact in the first team. This is the way we want to go in the future.”

Krul, Aarons, Godfrey, Klose, Lewis, Tettey, Mclean, Buendia, Duda, Cantwell, Pukki

Mccarthy, Walkerpeters, Stephens, Bednarek, Bertrand, Armstrong, Wardprowse, Hojbjerg, Redmond, Ings, Obafemi

Kevin Friend