After canning Mark Hughes on Monday, Southampton have reportedly already struck a deal to secure themselves a new manager.
Hughes was dismissed after mustering just five wins from 27 games in charge, thus taking his thoroughly lucrative career compensation earnings to somewhere around the £18million mark.
Anyway, Sky Sports News claim to that former RB Leipzig coach Ralph Hasenhuttl has agreed terms on a three-year contract that will see him stride into the managerial wake at St Mary’s…
BREAKING: Ralph Hasenhuttl has agreed terms on a three-year contract until 2021 to take over as @SouthamptonFC boss, Sky Sports News understands. pic.twitter.com/b93T3yDoNJ
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) 4 December 2018
The story goes that Hasenhuttl engaged in “positive” talks with Saints chairman Ralph Krueger, director of football Ross Wilson and other various members of the board earlier in the week and thus is expected to be officially sworn in within the next 48 hours.
Hasenhuttl left Leipzig back in May after failing to negotiate a contract extension following a two-year tenure in which he guided the newly-promoted side to a second-place finish in 2016/17 and then sixth place in 2017/18.
The 51-year-old Austrian favours “proactive play” using a narrow 4-2-2-2 formation with obsessive pressing, energetic midfield action and overlapping full-backs.
However, attempting to wade in and implement all that on top of Southampton’s ridiculously flimsy central defence might not be the smartest idea straight off the bat.