With Thursday evening’s defeat to West Ham United, Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl remains grounded about the challenge he faces at St Mary’s Stadium this season.
With a defeat in his first game, we registered back to back wins prior to the game yesterday so he has had an impact in lifting the group, but he knows that the performance last night shows that there is plenty more work to do – but he’s fine with that.
Speaking to Sky Sports as he reflected more on the 2-1 defeat he knew there had certainly been encouraging signs, but he’d also learnt plenty following the game and that should stand us in good stead in the coming months of the season.
“We don’t lose, either we win or we learn. We are critical of ourselves. We were hungry today, but not as speedy as in the last two weeks. We had a lot of players who were not at their top level today, but we still had a chance to win. We gave it away too easily – one shot outside the box and one counter-attack after a corner from us. We did not make our best match today. We could see from the first 15 minutes that West Ham were going to have plenty of possession, but we did not put much pressure on the ball.”
It’s a sensible way of looking at things, and with such a small period of time between taking the lead and then conceding there are obviously things that we can work on and undoubtedly will. Many will point to fatigue kicking in given our previous efforts, but that’s where rotation comes in and giving all the players a clean slate will bring benefits.
