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Watt View - Logical decisions, transparency and ability to adapt are needed to move forward

It’s been a while since my last Watt View column but The Ugly Inside and Southampton FC remain staples in my life whether I am contributing on here or not.

As I embarked on writing a piece in the weeks preceding the start of the season, my intention was to reflect on the summer purchases so far and what we needed to see happen prior to the opening Premier League weekend.

Unfortunately we all now know how that played out in the absence of my pre-season column, however, much of what I would have explained remains wholly relevant.

There is absolutely no question that Saints boss Ralph Hasenhuttl has to add a proven quality goalscorer to his first choice 11 and it has to be done quickly.

Clearly the club placed all its eggs in one basket in the failed attempt to lure Liam Delap away from Manchester City, which seems evident from the reported £20 million plus £10 million in add-ons Saints were willing the shell out.

You have to question how, having seen the issue of a lack of goal power throughout last season, there was no back-up plan to address missing out on Delap.

It also could not have been a surprise to the club seeing as they had been negotiating with City all summer with goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu, midfielder Romeo Lavia and head of recruitment Joe Shields all making the move to St Mary’s.

The desire to bring Delap to St Mary’s must have been ongoing for some time and it must have seem unlikely throughout discussions, so why did attention not turn elsewhere more quickly?

Question marks also remained pre-season over defensive frailties, despite the arrival of central defender Armel Bella-Kotchap, and the lack of experience and quality at the back was exposed for all to see at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium as Saints crumbled 4-1.

Personally, an established centre back and striker were absolute musts over the summer - along with the need to get them in early to settle and prepare for another tough season in the Premier League.

But, despite not achieving that, the club’s owners had still invested in six signings and there was, as always, hope among the faithful that the decision to invest in top young talent would push the club forward.

That hope was dashed, however, when Hasenhuttl’s first team sheet of the season dropped and fans were reminded that no amount of changes to the back room team can seemingly change the manager’s bizarre team selection policy.

For me it was a really simple one, 4-3-3.

Bazunu (though the two headers conceded were poor but benefit of the doubt given for now) in goal, a back four of Kyle Walker-Peters at right back, Bella-Kotchap and Mo Salisu as the centre back pairing, Romain Perraud at left back.

That creates a back four and the manager himself has said he has tried to add more numbers at the back to strengthen - yet creates a "five” which is effectively a three once stretched and pulled by a quality team.

Three across the middle in Oriol Romeu, James Ward-Prowse and Romeo Lavia, with Stuart Armstrong and Joe Aribo either side of Che Adams up top.

I am also a fan of Moi Elyounoussi and felt he was hard done by not to start, while Sekou Mara is a fit 20-year-old who must be itching to be involved in the Premier League - yet was not included in the matchday squad despite not being injured.

Hasenhuttl had other ideas though, as he often does, going for a 5-3-2 which included Yan Valery, Jan Bednarek and Mo Salisu as centre backs, Moussa Djenepo as left wing back and Adam Armstrong up front with Joe Aribo behind.

Whatever the manager’s reasoning was, the starting 11 wasn’t good enough - and the most frustrating thing of all is that players in the squad who should have been starting in order to add the quality needed were sat on the bench.

Then, when substitutions were made, the manager opts for Jack Stephens over Bella-Kotchap, leaving both him and Adams on the sidelines for the duration.

This is my biggest gripe with the management decisions made. As fans of SFC it has come to be expected and accepted that money will not be splashed without consideration, and even then it will be significantly less that even similar-sized clubs.

But when we have a solid foundation that we know can compete then use it, don’t sabotage it. One can only assume from the cryptic wording that Hasenhuttl has an issue with Adams, something that has become somewhat of a familiar scenario among the manager and players if we are to believe various reports over recent seasons.

When asked about Adams post-match, the Austrian said: "I think we didn’t want to change the two guys up front - Joe (Aribo) and Stuart (Armstrong). They deserved to play as they had a good pre-season and they scored goals. In the end, Arma (Adam Armstrong) got the chance to start today because he was a successful striker in pre-season for us. He deserved that.”

The issue here is that Stuart Armstrong came on with Saints already losing the game, while it is clear to everyone that pre-season - and particularly the disjointed one Saints experienced - cannot be used as complete rationale for decisions made in relation to Premier League matches.

On Mara not being involved, he said: "He’s only trained for one and a half weeks. He’s a young player and you can see what this league gives you. Give him time.”

Yet, taking the above personnel decisions into account, Hasenhuttl said this post-match: "This was frustrating to see how big the gap is between these two teams to be honest because after the first goal you had the feeling that they were absolutely in the game and then they smashed us with crosses and we couldn't defend in a way that we wanted to do.

"It's not easy to defend in the box but it happens when you play in the shape and when you're defending around the box because we are normally more active up front and give them more pressure in our moments in the game.

"We know this, but I wasn't expecting that we struggled so much in defending the crosses to be honest, and this was a little bit annoying and I must say.”

I have to say that the manager’s decisions and his comments leave me utterly perplexed. While I appreciate fans won’t be party to everything happening behind the scenes, we are invested in the club and deserve to understand the reasoning behind decisions.

This becomes even more essential when poor decisions and selections lead to avoidable harm, such as what was witnessed on Saturday when, arguably, only Dejan Kulusevski’s well-crafted strike was a deserved effort.

The other three were defensive mistakes which, according to the boss, were the fault of both the defence and the attackers - yet his selections were not in line with the view of most associated with the club.

This bizarre state of affairs is not how we wanted to start the season and must change as we move forward. We need to see sensible and logical decisions, transparency about the rationale for the choices made and an ability to adapt when the game plan doesn’t work.


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