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In the Southampton dugout, a matter of yards does tend to offer extreme contrasts in emotion and energy.
In front of the dugout, Ralph Hasenhuttl stands alone, clad in black from top to toe and punctuated by a trademark baseball cap. Both hands start in their pockets but swiftly come out once the first whistle has been blown. The fire and brimstone nature of the man, who is usually ceaseless in his energy output, can often led to an over-reliance on his voice and vocality during matches.
Sat a few Hasenhuttl strides behind are the Austrian’s closest aides, in Richard Kitzbichler, Dave Watson and Craig Fleming. While their positions on the bench routinely change due to COVID-19 protocols, they are acutely aware of their role in their background, ready to assimilate Hasenhuttl’s reverberating instructions. In the sporadic moments where their manager pauses for brief contemplation and turns around, they are there to offer an understated word of advice from their seat.
Former goalkeeper and now senior first team coach Kelvin Davis sits a few yards further back and normally is among the substitutes in the stands, given these socially-distanced times. Davis is there to observe having led the team warm-up earlier on. He is the one that does tend to provide an emotional counsel if/when Hasenhuttl asks, usually at half-time or afterwards.
Hasenhuttl’s 6ft 3in presence means he frequently swallows up most touchline areas in the league, patrolling his box with an intensity very few managers appear to be able to match. Not even Jurgen Klopp, the customary example of a manager with endless energy, could compete with the velocity of Hasenhuttl during their one-nil defeat in January.
In the silent din of an empty stadium, Hasenhuttl’s words are even more pronounced, even more fraught with intensity and drama.
During Monday night’s dismal 3-0 defeat away to West Brom, where his side’s habitual penchant for caving in probably reached its nadir, Hasenhuttl wore the look of a man encompassed by frustration. The 53-year-old has struggled with an issue with his hip in recent weeks and has no doubt worsened due to the sheer ire directed towards his team’s recent starts to matches.
Limping rather than racing around his dugout, Hasenhuttl would supply an endless stream of encouragement to his players in English at the Hawthorns, to only then regularly turn around to his closest aide, Kitzbichler, and protest in German.
45 seconds: “Come on Theo, get there! Well done Theo!” – West Brom begin by passing the ball across the defence and Hasenhuttl wants to assert territory dominance instantly. Walcott, one of his more vicarious pressers of the ball, forces Baggies left-back Conor Townsend, into a long pass forward.
2nd minute: “Good Jan, calm Jan, stand with it!” – A ping-pong ball opening means Hasenhuttl calls for Jannik Vestergaard to stay still with the ball, enabling the picture in front of him to alter while he is under no pressure. This instruction aims to generate some composure and in turn, control on the ball for the team. A shout of “calm!” has been discernible in most games and reflects a deviation in approach in this season compared to last, with Saints becoming more possession-retention led.
For example, last season the Saints boss may have shouted “second ball” – essentially encouraging Jan Bednarek to play longer.
7th minute: “Come on, together! Start winning the first ball!” – First signs of visible frustration come on the seven minute mark after West Brom make the better start. Hasenhuttl would go on to say after the match that he sensed the direction in which the game was heading after the first ‘one or two duels.’
By this point, the hosts already had a goal ruled out for offside, through the minutiae or some may argue sheer ineptitude, of VAR. Saints attempt to hunt the ball in numbers and do force West Brom into a flooded, tight area of the pitch. But they manage to resist the first phase of the press and break forward. The attack results in Fraser Forster making a solid stop with his legs.
13th minute: “Come on, there’s two of you over there!” – With West Brom’s making concerted efforts to target Southampton’s right-hand channel, Theo Walcott, the closest player to Hasenhuttl’s line of fire, is at the end of most of the manager’s orders. Walcott and Kyle Walker-Peters fail to close down a ball out-wide and get played around, with another good chance being fashioned for the hosts.
14th minute: “Richard!” – Detecting a jarring flaw in the current set-up, assistant Richard Klitzbilcher is called upon and becomes Hasenhuttl’s sounding board. After 30 seconds of German dialect between the pair, Hasenhuttl faces towards the pitch again and repeatedly claps, encouraging his front four to be more purposeful in closing down.
21st minute: “Calm, keep it here, Calm!” – After issuing out a similar instruction 19 minutes prior, Southampton still have not grasped the dominant footing Hasenhuttl demands. He tells James Ward-Prowse to retain possession and recycle the ball across Saints’ back-line, paving the way for the side to acquire a disguised breather from West Brom’s fast start.
26th minute: Arms folded – Hasenhuttl staying in one bodily pose for longer than a fleeting moment in always noticeable. A folding of the arms does usually transpire in during his more pensive moments. While his team are beginning to show bellwether signs of improving, Hasenhuttl still stresses his concern over the space West Brom’s attacking players are getting. Again, he turns to deliberate with Kitzbichler, who offers his thoughts in a quiet, unobtrusive manner.
41st minute: “More compact, not so high” – Sam Johnstone’s goal-kick gives Southampton a breather and allows Hasenhuttl to reset his side’s shape following a frantic 183 seconds between West Brom’s first and second goals. The aerial threat of striker Mbaye Diagne means the defensive line needs to drop deeper, with Ward-Prowse and Diallo providing better screening in front.
42nd minute: “Why is no one there?” – Hasenhuttl’s cry of anguish is ensued by a 180 degree spin facing his dugout, but no answers to his question is forthcoming. Muted frustration is directed towards Danny Ings and Nathan Redmond, whose rather static movement in the box fails to get anywhere near Ryan Bertrand’s front post cross.
46th minute: “Ibra get in there!” – In the two additional minutes of stoppage time, the first audible shout arrives from Hasenhuttl’s dugout aides. Craig Fleming orders Ibrahima Diallo to leave his position on the edge of the box during an attacking corner and enter the six-yard box to crowd Johnstone. Fleming perhaps senses that an extra body in the box will add an extra decoy for the run of Vestergaard.
47th minute: “Come on guys, that’s better!” – Hasenhuttl spends half time warning his players they have 10 minutes to show distinct improvements or changes will be made. Messages of positivity appear to be reinforced and become more frequent and louder. Any lapses of concentration over the next quarter of an hour are met with a hushed word under his breath and a gaze towards the stand closest to the press box.
52nd minute: “Kyle deeper!” – Although Southampton are in possession, Hasenhuttl is wary of the vulnerability within their right-hand side and how effeectively West Brom exploited the weakness in the first half. The gaps between the full-back and the closest interior centre-back had been chasmic. Hasenhuttl tells Walker-Peters to get closer to Jan Bednarek, ensuring the right-back is in a position to recover if there is a turnover in play.
59 min – “Reddy touch it!” – Hasenhuttl is beginning to evoke a sense of desperation to proceedings after his side’s buoyant start to the second half fails to create any clear-cut chances. Redmond appears to be through on goal but his toke poke proves futile against a last ditch tackle. The ball ends up being swatted away for a corner. Again, Hasenhuttl pivots around to his bench to show what he thought of Redmond’s decision to tentatively poke at the ball.
It must be said that an interesting byproduct of Hasenhuttl’s concentrated efforts to remove any negativity onto his players is to spin around each and every time he’s set to vent some of his spleen.
62nd minute: “Exactly! Stuey drop deep, here are the tens, behind Stuey!” – After changing a few of the ‘behaviours’ at half-time – this writer opines the team’s shape when playing from deep was one of those behaviours – Hasenhuttl is encouraged with his players seemingly heeding the advice.
Forster’s goal kick is played to Ryan Bertrand, who has stationed himself in an inverted full-back position, with Stuart Armstrong providing the left-handed width. Hasenhuttl calls for his two tens (Redmond and Walcott in this instance) to exploit the vacated space created by Bertrand and Armstrong’s subtle tweak in starting positions. Ultimately, a promising attack ends-up in a cross being blocked.
66th minute: “Stay high watch the ball!” – Hasenhuttl repeats this line three times in one minute, barking at his back four to be braver in their holding of the defensive line. Old habits have begun to creep into Southampton’s play in the half and Hasenhuttl’s dips into German dialect start to become more frequent again.
69th minute: “Not high enough!” – Hasenhuttl berates in both English and German that his defence are still not where he wants them to be, resulting in the midfield pivot having too cavernous a space to cover, centrally. A minute later, his premonition proves accurate as Callum Robinson is slid in after a simple straight run splits Saints’ defence into two and makes it three-nil.
The next twenty minutes are spent with his arms folded and regular shakes of the head. Like his players, all discernible noise has become ruffled murmurs.
91st minute: “Argh!” – James Ward-Prowse’s spot-kick miss proves symbolic of Saints’ utterly dire evening. Hasenhuttl completes one last longing stare into the stands before seeing the rest of the game out with his hands in pockets. Meanwhile, the Saints players go through the motions with the same lethargy as before.
Post-match: Hasenhuttl trudges alone back towards the changing rooms after carrying out his post-match duties. He still appears to be ostensibly troubled by hip pain, perhaps explaining the paucity of usual dynamism in his body movements.
A night to certainly forget in the Midlands and an evening that is quickly and worryingly becoming more of a regular occurrence for Southampton.
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