Imagine Ralph Hasenhuttl entering football’s fiercest sword-fight without his most serrated blade.

The mere thought would be quite daunting wouldn’t it? But please, do not worry, after all…

We March On.

If you have followed Southampton for any length of time, those are three words you will know all too well. Six years after Southampton began to move the needle and brandish it as their chief tagline, the three words remain a key staple to Southampton’s commercial success.

Whether it is used by players in Instagram posts, in hashtags on Twitter, or fastened to posters inside the stadium’s walls, you cannot get away from this common, verging on threadbare, rhetoric.

Pre-Hasenhuttl and Martin Semmens, some within the club saw fit to use ‘We March On’ as an easy way out, in which they could use a throwaway strapline to somehow rational the club’s failings. Issues surrounding player departures and incremental regression year upon year? Just say ‘We March On,’ in your response and everything will be alright.

While the three words had temporarily lost its value, the current board are beginning to restore its faith. Nowadays, it can be seen to act as an ample description to help describe the club’s medium-to-long term strategy. It offers a concise explanation into how the club operates and their unrelenting will to keep swimming against the tide, no matter how rough the seas may get or how much adversity life in the Premier League could throw at them.

It is three words that are supposedly set to convey much deeper, profound meaning – yes, Southampton are always going to punch above their weight, and occasionally have its prime heavyweight talent picked off. Yes, some of the punches received are heavy, thudding blows, but will never quite be knockout ones.

We March On. Onto the next great player, onto the next transitional period in which Saints will keep plowing on, dodging the punches and still dreaming that their elite manager wasn’t living such a hand-to-mouth existence.

Rhetoric is one thing. Actions are another.

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Despite possessing a manager who holds virtuoso abilities of the highest order and has allowed supporters to fantasize again, a single decision may shatter Hasenhuttl’s well-built foundations.

Without wanting to put a dampener on things, especially with Southampton currently sitting on the precipice of dinner at the Champions League table, we need to talk Danny Ings and those pesky contract negotiations.

After the 2-1 victory at Brighton, that contract situation became a little more blurry and a lot more fragmented. If it hadn’t been already, it is now a matter of urgency. At the time of writing, while it not unusual for their to be stumbling blocks in contract negotiations, it is understood a deal is there to be a done.

In case you were one of the few that had somehow forgot about the striker during his three game lay-off, interposed by another international break, Monday night he tapped you on the shoulder and offered a stark reminder of how staggeringly influential he is to this club, this group of players and this manager.

His 81st minute penalty was his sixth goal of the season and his 20th shot. There he stood, stationary, with his arms aloft, hands outstretched, displaying an exquisite arrogance that could hark back to Eric Cantona’s poetic dink against Sunderland, all those years ago.

Due to the truncated nature of his recent appearances, it may be forgotten that Ings has now scored in his last four matches, the first Southampton player to achieve such a feat since a certain Rickie Lambert, seven years ago.

Right now, confidence and intrepid swagger is coursing through his veins. Though chaos was all around him as VAR took over two minutes to award the penalty, he stood calm. Fine margins collude football and in those precious, crucial moments, Ings demonstrates an unwavering desire to seize them.

Only Bruno Fernandes, a player who like Ings holds an interminable dependence for his side, has scored more away goals this calendar year.

At times, Southampton were befuddling to watch in the first half. The composure at the back and subtly in carrying out the dark arts had vanished. With fans returning, players appeared flustered and also perturbed by the wetness of the playing surface, as Hasenhuttl would allude to after.

In what was becoming a tepid Southampton performance, Danny Ings came on and instantly lit a fuse. When the news of Ings’ second half arrival began to filter around the socially distanced Amex, an ominous precedent was set for the second 45 minutes.

Though Saints were poor on the ball throughout the game, as Hasenhuttl concurred with afterwards, Ings was the anomaly. Each time he would receive the ball, a sudden spark ignited in attack and a sudden spark of vulnerability in Brighton’s defence. Eerie hushes were heard encompassing the pitch whenever he got on the ball.

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He began the second-half positioned inside of the right channel, intending to create a numerical overload against Brighton’s Solly March, who continues to moonlight as a left wing-back. But then, in what is a common pattern in the final 20 minutes of matches, when team’s begin to tire and transitions become frequent, he drifted out to the left. This meant Stuart Armstrong was given added space to glide in from the opposite flank.

Danny Ings scores goals. But as Southampton supporters know, he does a hell of a lot more than that.

He is arguably Saints’ best tackler given his success pressing from the front. He also shares an innate desire to defend his own box as was on exhibit soon after coming on. From a deep-lying free-kick, Ings managed to stop Adam Webster – who has a five inch height advantage – from getting on the end of a free-header at the back post with an astute one of his own.

If you just quantify success in goalscoring metrics, you may tend to neglect his all-round contributions. If Southampton are going places, Danny Ings must be seen as the paradigm for success in every which way. He is the leader of the wolf pack and a player who is finally flourishing after years of hardship.

Danny Ings’ is Southampton’s catalyst. The man who stands up when it truly matters through his actions, not just words. Losing him would not just severely hamper the total goals scored, but the genetic make-up of the side.

Southampton head into most games with depth, quality in numbers, and resources usually inferior. Man for man, the majority of teams are stronger – but not one quite fortifies the idea of a collective as much as Hasenhuttl.

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Southampton rely on a series of intangibles for success: potential, potential sell-on value, managers who can exceed expectations while living within their own means. The club’s shortcomings in financial power are now being supplanted by the excellence of coaching at their disposal.

It would be highly likely that if Ings did depart, Saints would not be able depend on intangibles anymore, nor being moulded by adept coaching. Instead of marching on, they’d be traipsing back towards a cesspit.

Southampton giving Danny Ings what he’s truly worth is not a sign of weakness, it is a statement of pure intent. Not only would it show to the rest of the league that taking players off the club is not like plucking an apple from a tree, but rather a message to Ralph Hasenhuttl that Southampton are going to eke out every ounce of success under him.

If Saints refuse to break the opaque wage cap, it would send out quite the opposite.

Going to go into battle without his strongest soldiers? Driving a Mini in a Grand-Prix? Whatever underdog analogy you wish to use, there would be no doubt Hasenhuttl and the squad would be sent swiftly into a negative spiral.

How much is a player of his quality worth? Think about it. Without hoping to pry, he could earn twice the amount at a top six club. He is English, has a relentless desire to score goals and has a malleable approach to football, where he views his defensive duties just as seriously as his attacking output. Three things all significantly valued in today’s game.

It is understood negotiations between Ings’ representatives and the club have hit a roadblock in recent weeks. The pressing tone in which Ralph Hasenhuttl spoke on the situation infers the issues are perhaps more complex than just wages, hence the snags that have delayed the deal from being completed sooner.

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“Yes, the decision is clear – that he stays with us until the end of his contract”, Hasenhuttl said last Friday. “Either (that or) there comes a club that pays the money we want to have for him and then he can leave, but I don’t know if he wants this, I don’t know if he wants to leave.  I know what he has with the club. I know how much the fans love him here and what we can give him.”

The England international spearheads Southampton’s highly-regarded pressing game. Again, if you needed a reminder into Danny Ings, just watch the first 20 seconds of the second half, when the striker swallows up 40 metres of ground to force Brighton’s goalkeeper Mat Ryan into a hurried clearance that went out of play.

Let yourself dream, imagine if Ralph Hasenhuttl had the money that aligned with the ‘We March On’ ambition and an owner whose eyes and ears were close to the ground and not content with just the £15 million net spend from the past two years. Hasenhuttl has got the autonomy to reconfigure and bolster a starting lineup, but needs extra power to calibrate it further.

The Austrian’s reign began just over two years ago and in that time Danny Ings has struck 34 times. Unsurprisingly, it is the most of any Saints player. To underline his goalscoring superiority, the next best is James Ward-Prowse with 16 goals; more than double the midfielder.

Perhaps it is far too idealistic in hoping to keep nice things at St Mary’s. After all, departures in recent years have resembled some sort of tragicomedy, where the good ones leave and break your hearts while the not so good ones stay and break your patience.

Things do not have to go down that route. Someway, somehow, Martin Semmens and Ralph Hasenhuttl have to conjure up a plan to ensure their best player stays. If they do, it would undoubtedly send reverberations around the league.

Pressing-frenzied, occasionally kamikaze Southampton are still going to be fearlessly marching to a stadium near you, charged with more bite and ambition than ever before. Danny Ings sharpens the knife of Southampton attacks and wields the edges to dangerous perfection. They simply cannot afford to let him go.

It all starts with sticking a pen in Danny Ings’ right hand, a wad of cash in the left and a piece of paper in front of him.

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