Southampton fans have long felt that Wesley Hoedt’s time at the club was up after a string of poor performances, and following the arrival of Austrian manager Ralph Hasenhuttl, the Dutchman certainly didn’t impress and he found himself farmed out to Celta Vigo last January.
Despite some speculation that the £15million capture from Lazio may get a second chance in 2019/20, he ultimately ended up making another loan move late on in the summer transfer window and his destination this time was Belgian side, Royal Antwerp.
The 25-year-old has only made four appearances for them so far, but he recently held an interview with Belgian outlet Het Laatste Nieuws (via Sport Witness) to slam the treatment he received from our new gaffer, but credit where it’s due, he at least acknowledges his own form at the time.
“When Ralph Hasenhuettl took over as Southampton manager, it was over for me. I feel unjustly treated by him somewhere, because suddenly I was pushed out of the way. And that after I played a lot in the year and a half before. At the same time, I will stand in front of the mirror myself. Perhaps I was not top notch at that time. You find it strange in Belgium that a player of 18 million ends up at Antwerp? Well, that transfer amount was quite a lot of money at the time. But it didn’t work out as planned. Last summer, several options were discussed, but for some reason there was always nothing. At the end, Antwerp wanted to take me on loan and I decided to go for it. After a longer period of time when I played less, I want to have a stable season.”
It just didn’t work out and few fans ended up backing him when he was playing given the performances we saw and he didn’t really pull up any trees at Celta Vigo here. If the spell at Antwerp goes well, hopefully we can recoup at least some of our original outlay and he can simply move on next summer.
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