Austrian manager Ralph Hasenhüttl is still ‘enjoying life’ away from the game as he sees out the final year of his ‘lucrative’ Southampton contract.
That’s according to journalist Peter Linden, who covers the situation today and details how Southampton’s current sales indicate the club were wrong to sack the Austrian coach.
Hassenhuttl has been without a job since being sacked by Southampton in November last year, a departure that brought an end to a four-year spell in charge for him.
He left the club after back-to-back defeats to Newcastle and Crystal Palace and was subsequently replaced by Nathan Jones, who was then later sacked before Ruben Selles was put in charge until the end of the season.
He was unable to keep Southampton in the Premier League and they’ve since underseen a busy summer overhaul in which €176m worth of talent has departed, something Linden believes is proof that Hasenhüttl was on the right track at the club.
He explains that the Hasenhüttl ‘has been enjoying life’ for basically nine months since leaving Southampton, with none of the enquiries that have came his way enough to convince him to make a comeback.
His four years at Southampton were ‘exhausting enough’ and he’s happy to keep taking the money from his ‘lucrative’ contract with the Saints, which runs until the summer of 2024. He’s in no hurry to make a return to the game because of it.
In the meantime, Southampton continue to reshape their squad, with big sales already secured and more potentially incoming.
That so-called ‘legacy from Hasenhüttl’s time in charge ‘impressively shows’ that the Austrian and his assistant coach, Richard Kizbichler, ‘built something up at Southampton’ that would have had a future.
Linden believes that the fact players Hasenhüttl brought to the club and developed further or got better under him are now bringing in ‘no less than €169.1m’ after being bought for €60m should see him applauded.
Indeed, the indication from the journalist is that it’s proof Southampton were wrong to sack Hasenhüttl in the first place and, perhaps if they’d shown more patience, better times may have been around the corner.
