In the past, Southampton have had some of English football’s brightest talents, and a lot of those players, the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mane, Luke Shaw and Adam Lallana, have moved on to better things. However, over the course of this summer, the Saints have had an entirely different problem.
Instead of living in fear that the club’s latest and brightest player is going to be poached by Liverpool or another top side, Ralph Hasenhuttl has been doing an amazing job of moving on some of the club’s lesser needed players, with as many as seven unneeded senior players being allowed to leave.
The likes of Mario Lemina (Sky Sports), Wesley Hoedt (BBC), Mohamed Elyounoussi (BBC), Guido Carrillo (BBC), Jordy Clasie (Sky Sports), Fraser Forster (BBC) and Charlie Austin (Sky Sports) have all been moved on, freeing up at least £325,000 in wages from last season’s wage bill, as per Spotrac.
With the wages freed up and places in the squad vacated by some of those who weren’t in the plans of Ralph Hasenhuttl, the Alpine Jurgen Klopp, a nickname explained by The Guardian when Hasenhuttl made his move to manage Southampton, the Austrian can now plan for some incomings in January and start moulding the squad in his image.
Some of the transfer business conducted prior to Hasenhuttl’s appointment was nothing short of pathetic. Both Mauricio Pellegrino and Mark Hughes failed to make lasting impressions at St. Mary’s, and between them, as they signed four of the seven players that were named above, as per Transfermarkt.
On the incoming’s front, all the Saints did was confirm the signing of Danny Ings after his loan spell last season (BBC) on top of the signings of Che Adams (BBC), Moussa Djenepo (BBC) and Kevin Danso (BBC), and it looks like Southampton could be set to turn a corner under Hasenhuttl now.
