This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Back at the end of October, we outlined two things that we felt Ralph Hasenhuttl needed to do to overturn the Saints’ dreadful Premier League form.
At the time, the Saints had just been beaten 9-0 by Leicester in embarrassing fashion in front of their own supporters at St Mary’s, with the Foxes’ ninth goal being the 25th concession for Southampton in just ten games.
Also, at the time when that article was written, the south coast side had scored just nine goals in ten league outings, the third-least amount in England’s top-flight.
However, as we speak now, the former RB Leipzig manager’s side have now scored 17 Premier League goals – the 14th most in the division – and while they have still conceded the most with 33, things are looking better with Southampton sat in 17th, a point above the drop zone after back-to-back wins.
So, what did Hasenhuttl do?
Stuck with a formation
In our aforementioned article, one of the two things we said the Austrian should do was stick with a formation, having used six different systems in 12 outings at the time of writing.
Contrastingly, the Saints have now stuck with a 4-2-2-2 system for the last three Premier League games against Arsenal, Watford and Norwich, winning two and drawing one – in truth, they should’ve won all three.
The 4-2-2-2 was one that we mentioned Hasenhuttl should stick with, as that formation had merited the most success, and the consistency in the approach is paying dividends.
Has dropped underperforming players
Also in that piece from October, we said that Hasenhuttl has to stop picking the same underperforming players such as Angus Gunn, Maya Yoshida and Jannik Vestergaard, and the Saints boss has listened.
All three of those men were not in the side during that aforementioned three-game unbeaten run, with Alex McCarthy now holding the No.1 shirt with confidence.
Also, Jack Stephens – who we name-dropped as someone who surely deserves a chance in the aforementioned article – has stepped in with some effect despite the odd mistake.
In other Southampton news, take a look at two highs and one low from Ralph Hasenhuttl’s first year in charge…