Bought for £17m from Lille in 2016, Sofiane Boufal has struggled to live up to expectations at Southampton over the past three years, but things appear to be turning around under Ralph Hassenhüttl for the Morocco international.
Starting four out of the last five games (he was on the bench against Chelsea), the forward is trying to regain some consistency in the Premier League after a successful loan to Celta Vigo during the 2018-19 campaign.
Prior to that move to Spain, however, the player reached an all-time low when Mark Hughes was appointed as Mauricio Pellegrino’s replacement in March 2018, and picked the former Lille star just once before banishing him from the squad altogether until the end of the season.
Speaking to Canal Plus about it on Sunday, Boufal gave a candid explanation as to why things didn’t work out during that period.
“After that, it there was a lot of self-reflection. That episode helped me a lot, because it was the first time I had my back against the wall with a manager, and in my head it was clear that I decided to stay and impose myself at Southampton”.
However, after a summer of thinking, Boufal took the decision to go to Celta Vigo on loan because he felt ‘it was the right time’, and he ‘needed to leave to come back stronger’.
He explained it allowed him to ‘learn some lessons’ from the Mark Hughes issues, and he’s now returned to St Mary’s ‘far more mature and has a lot more peace of mind’.
And it shows.
