Southampton are in a slump but keeping hold of Hasenhuttl is pivotal
➤ Despite picking up one point from the last 24, the Austrian is the club’s biggest asset in landing a new owner
The Southampton manager, Ralph Hasenhuttl, has a release clause in his contract which is different in value according to the club that might seek to poach him, reaching as high as £20million should it be one of the Premier League’s biggest names.
It was agreed when Hasenhuttl signed his recent deal last June, although many feel that the politics of managing a big club would not suit the Austrian. He runs the football side at Southampton with complete authority and is one of a small group of key figures at the club. Alongside chief executive Martin Semmens, Hasenhuttl enjoys the kind of pre-eminence that is rare among his Premier League managerial peers higher up the table.
It has been a remarkable ride since he arrived in December 2018. From last season’s resurgence to finish
11th, in November they went top of the league for the first time in 32 years. Hasenhuttl wept in the technical area when Saints beat Liverpool on Jan 4.
Since then, they have drawn one and lost seven in the league, the most recent a 3-0 defeat by Leeds United on Tuesday.
Yet there is a different dynamic at play to what would be the more conventional gathering of pressure on an embattled manager. The club have placed Hasenhuttl at the centre of their future, backing him unreservedly after the 9-0 defeat by Leicester City in October 2019 and generally he has repaid that. The question being asked is not whether he will have to go, but whether they can give Hasenhuttl the resources to keep him long enough to find a new owner who will nourish the club.
In the meantime, what is it that Hasenhuttl presides over? For a period, Saints were the greatest trading club in the Premier League, with young players and shrewd signings sold on for huge fees. They defined the art of renewal in their early years back in the Premier League under Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman, but now they are locked in a much more difficult battle for survival. Their faith in the manager is total, but the sale of the club hangs over everything and the crash in league form since the first game of the new year has been spectacular.
The club have an absentee ownership in China, businessman Gao Jisheng, who is eager to sell. The day-to-day running is left to the executive team, who have the power to make major decisions and also face down the owners if they feel it necessary. Gao is reliant upon the likes of Semmens and managing director Toby Steele, as well as Hasenhuttl, to run the club, and keep them in the league. That gives them leverage over the Chinese owners insisting on player sales or blocking acquisitions. Now 14th, the team’s form, FA Cup run aside, has been alarming. Performances have not been uniformly dire over this slump, but the players lack confidence. The squad are thin in places, with just two senior full-backs of which one – Kyle Walker-peters – is injured. The January window yielded the exciting loan signing of Takumi Minamino from Liverpool, but no defensive back-up. If the injury to midfielder Oriol Romeu on Tuesday is serious then that will add another concern.
The demands of Hasenhuttl’s system, a narrow 4-2-2-2 formation that requires the players to run hard and press hard, exacts a high physical price on a small squad. The two 9-0 defeats by Leicester and then Manchester United 14 months apart have shown the side’s volatility. The squad are being pushed to their limits.
Under the Covid-19 fan lockout, Saints are losing around £3 million to £5 million a month and have agreed a £75million loan facility with MSD Holdings, currently the financier of choice in the Premier League. It allows them to cope with an extremely difficult situation and try to invest in players to move forward. The loan has a five-year repayment cycle which the club hope will give them time to find the right new owner – no easy task.
There have been around five interested parties, some more publicity-hungry than others, including those who are suspected of attempting to agree a deal in order they can then attract backers. The club are also wary of heavily leveraged buyouts. Katharina Liebherr, daughter of the late former owner Markus, retains 20 per cent, which is another bulwark against Gao forcing a sale through.
Saints are valued at around £230million. The club come with the benefit of owning St Mary’s Stadium and the Staplewood training ground and all the usual jeopardy of keeping a club of that status in the Premier League.
Come the summer, Saints believe a strong free-agent market will work to their benefit. Top goalscorer Danny Ings is holding off signing a new deal and with one year left on his contract this summer, his ambition is a Champions League club. Ryan Bertrand’s contract expires in the summer. He is the club’s only senior specialist left-back.
It comes back again to the club retaining what they consider to be their greatest asset – the manager – who is now overseeing his third survival season. Can Saints keep Hasenhuttl happy for long enough for them to find the owners that will allow the club to move forward? The release clause is a deterrent against his departure, although it would most likely be right to say that in the wider football world his stock fluctuates with his team’s fortunes.
“A disaster,” was how Hasenhuttl described the second half against Leeds, although a disaster would constitute their manager leaving.
Covid-19 has changed many of the old rules in football, but never more so than at Saints – a club in a slump trying to keep their manager, not jettison him.