A team that the Saints supporters want ! Ralph Hasenhuttl hit the nail on the head after his second win in three games showed that Saints have the squad it just needed managing properly.

There is still a long way to go in this season and it will be full of more twists and turns, but Ralph Hasenhuttl has shown in little more than a fortnight that he could be our best manager since Lawrie McMenemy, yes I know that I said that about Ronald Koeman a few years ago, but Koeman's failure to grasp legendary status was all about off the field not what he did for us as a club.

But the difference in virtually everything about the squad was there to see at Huddersfield, it is nothing short of a miracle how players who looked tired jaded and de motivated are suddenly eager to play, they look fitter both physically and mentally, if Hasenhuttl can do all this in two weeks what can he do in a season.

This was the same line up that beat Arsenal, but it was a different tactical performance, there was less pressing and more about working hard getting men behind the ball and then hitting on the break.

Again at the heart of everything was Nathan Redmond, he opened the scoring latching on to a defence splitting through ball from Hojbjerg and lashing it past the keeper.

Just before the break it was two and it was Redmond again at the heart laying the ball for Ings who was brought down and subsequently converted the spot kick.

After the break Saints didn't have a lot of possession but they controlled the game, they seemed to know when to pass their way out of trouble and when to hoof it.

Huddersfield's moments where all of Saints making on the few occasions they failed to clear the ball properly, this will improve hopefully.

Just before the hour with Saints looking comfortable suddenly a goal out of nowhere, McCarthy had been having a decent game, but he completely misread the flight of the ball and was wrong footed.

But cue Hasenhuttl to change the game again, like last week he made the right subs at the right time, he firstly brought on Obafemi for his pace and to keep the home side on their toes and stop them pushing too far forward.

Then he brought on Lemina to shore up the midfield and offer more strength.

This paid dividends and again it was Redmond at the heart, he ran at the defence and forced an error, took the ball and rolled it into the path of Obafemi who made no mistake to send the red hatted hordes behind the goal into raptures.

Then it was just a question to see out the last twenty minutes and let the celebrations begin for yet another performance that had all that the fans have been crying out for since Ronald Koeman left.

A truly squad performance with the players looking almost unrecognisable than from a mere few weeks ago, this season is a long way from being over, but we can look onwards and upwards and not over our shoulders.

It wasn't last Christmas we gave Ronald Koeman our hearts it was a little longer than that and we have had a lot of tears since, but this Christmas we have truly given it to someone special.

Photo: Action Images

KriSaint added 01:05 - Dec 27 re @Lemmsy, maybe Ralph was in fact on our radar last summer but not available because, as we now have heard from his own mouth, being mentally somewhat tired, he wanted a 3-6 months break after having left Leipzig in may. We know by now, that he said no thanks to even Bayern M. because of his fatigue and because he felt BM was too big for him, and because he wanted to try himself in an other league in another country (probably first and foremost England and the PL)). In any case we are lucky that he was available and ready when we came for him a couple of weeks ago. I personally think he actually considers HIMSELF a bit lucky that Saints came for him, because our club sounded like a good match being a PL club with a decent size, history, philosophy, academy and amount of ressources (remember, at a point we were actually 18´th in the list of ´richest European clubs in 2018` (probably because of - among other things - all the infamous millions of pounds we got from Liverpool)). Like Jürgen Klopp rightly said: a win-win situation. (Thanks Jürgen). Well done Saints, recruiting such an obviously talented manager. At long last :-)

0

Bristol Rovers Polls