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Ralph Hasenhuttl Welcomes New Owners To St Mary's

Ralph Hasenhuttl has been speaking to the press about his involvement in Sport Republic's buy out Chairman Gao and subsequent majority shareholding in the club and revealed that he has been part of the process throughout.

Ralph Hasenhuttl would on the face of it be the type of manager that Rasmus Ankersen and the Sport republic group would be looking at under normal circumstances and it seems the fact that he is already at the club they have bought is a bonus.

"I've had a chance to talk to them," Ralph confirmed. "I must say that the long journey we had to find a new owner, I'm confident it will be a successful one. It was immediately a very good communication with them.

"They are good people. They know about football, they know about the business, and they will help us in the future to find quicker solutions. Quicker chances for doing the right things in this market.

"I see it a little bit different [to fans]. We get a lot of knowledge. We also get the chance to be earlier in our signings. But it doesn't mean we change our behaviours. So we don't go out into the market and buy everything that is around. It doesn't make any sense.

"We want to pick the players, the [Tino] Livramentos, the [Armando] Brojas, this new owner gives us the chance to get these guys earlier. This is what we want to have.

"In the past, it was very often that we had to sell players before we could sign new players. This will change now massively.

"But it doesn't mean we are now going for every player that is available. This is the reason why we are so happy that this Group decides to take us.

"You can be sure that such an investor doesn't make this decision by one day watching a club. They have looked very carefully. They have seen we have a clear strategy, a clear plan of how we want to develop this club. To make it healthy here for the club. This is the main reason they choose us."

These are positive words from the manager and it is good news for Saints supporters, some though have been critical in the past, some of that criticism can be justified, but in my opinion most of it could not be.

Since he joined Ralph Hasenhuttl knew he was going to be working under stringent conditions inherited from poor transfer dealings under a previous regime that saw around a dozen players signed expensively, paid highly and then doing little and being shipped out on loan.

Therefore some slack has to be cut for the manager for some of the things that didn't go quite right.

Now however it seems some of those restrictions will be lifted, some would have happened naturally, Fraser Forster and Alex McCarthy were between them costing around £7.5 million in wages, they are both out of contract in the summer and the savings are substantial.

But as Ralph says we now have the opportunity for cash to be injected into the club when needed and not having to wait till money was freed up elsewhere either by big earners leaving or by selling someone first.

Now we will see the real Ralph Hasenhuttl and the way he works, he has to have a clean sheet from his critics, judge him not just on the last three years where he has had to battle to keep the club out of relegation trouble something that he has managed well.

No judge him on what he does in the future !

As I said we have to leave the past just where it is, firmly behind us, we are still in the Premier League after some tough years, now hopefully we can move forward again now with the new owners.

Lets learn from the past, not let it drag us down!

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