Southampton v Wolves: Expert take on the Saints

We spoke with Ben Stanfield, hosts of the Total Saints Podcast, and Steve Grant, owner of SaintsWeb, to get a better look at the southerners.

See what they had to say here...

It's been a long time since Southampton and Wolves last met back in August, how would you describe the Saints' season?

BS: In true cliché terms, its ‘been a game of two halves!’

Saints were utterly atrocious under Mark Hughes, before he was eventually removed as manager in early December (just one Premier League win in 14 at that stage).

Despite promising entertaining football at the start of the season, there seemed to be no real strategy each game, regular changing of team selections and lots of general discontentment in and around the club.

It was no surprise to anyone when he finally got sacked.

Since Ralph Hasenhuttl came in it's (unsurprisingly) been so so much better.

The football has been a far more enjoyable watch and, thankfully, the results have come hand-in-hand with that.

Under Hasenhuttl, Saints have picked up 24 points in 18 Premier League games, including wins against Arsenal and Spurs, and a draw against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

SG: It’s been a bit of a mixed bag – we were mostly awful up until the start of December when Mark Hughes was finally put out of his (and our) misery, and in most other seasons the nine points we had from our first 14 games would have seen us cut adrift at the bottom.

Fortunately, the existence of Fulham, Burnley, Huddersfield and Cardiff ensured that we weren’t even bottom of the table when we changed managers, and while Ralph Hasenhüttl lost his first game (at Cardiff), we’ve generally been moving in the right direction since he came in.

There’s been clear evidence of a proper structure to the team, a defined plan against different types of opponent, and a number of individuals have clearly improved their games in a relatively short space of time.

What have you made of Ralph Hassenhuttl, he seems to have made this Southampton side much better since coming in?

BS: Quite simply, he’s been fantastic. He’s only been here four months, but 99% of Saints fans are already in love with him!

He is a proper football manager. Someone who shows an interest in the entire club – top to bottom.

Hasenhuttl expects his players to give 100% every week, makes sure they are fully prepared (tactically and mentally) for each game, treats everyone at the club with respect, shows faith in the young players and exuberates passion and belief on the touchline.

The Saints board deserve a lot of credit for convincing him to take the job in the first place.

There is a lot of enjoyment with life under Ralph, but conversations have already started around just how long we’ll be able to keep hold of him!

SG: He’s had a huge impact, and he’s had to do it without our best striker for the most part as Danny Ings has suffered the sort of injuries we rather feared he might, having barely played for the last three years or so.

While we’re still nowhere near the side we were three or four years ago (selling Dusan Tadic to Ajax for pennies will naturally stunt any team’s creativity), we’ve noticeably tightened up at the back, there is more energy in midfield and the attackers are happier to take responsibility in the final third rather than consistently looking to pass that responsibility on to a team mate.

Also, while it’s not really something I particularly care about, his touchline antics in terms of the passion he displays certainly endears himself to supporters, and he doesn’t seem to make excuses for poor performances, which is certainly an improvement on his predecessor.

What sort of style of play can we expect from this Saints side?

BS: The general style has been to press high and pressure opposition sides into mistakes.

Its largely worked, but he’s also had to adapt ‘Plan B’ and ‘Plan C’s’ as well, with many of the Premier League sides we’ve faced, particularly at St. Mary’s, just sitting deep to try and nullify his preferred style.

Ultimately the team, a bit like Hasenhuttl himself, show lots of energy and passion week in week out.

They certainly leave everything on the pitch – and that’s great to see as a fan!

SG: We’re quite a versatile side now, we’re capable of playing on the break as we showed in our win against Spurs and last week against Liverpool, although I don’t really expect that to be particularly evident on Saturday as I think Wolves quite like to play the same way and probably won’t be setting up camp in our half.

As a result, I think we’re more likely to play quite wide, getting both full-backs heavily involved, with Nathan Redmond combining with Ryan Bertrand on the left, and James Ward-Prowse with Yan Valery on the right.

Depending on who plays up front for us, I wouldn’t expect to see crosses being thrown indiscriminately into the box, as we’re not a huge aerial threat from open play.

Crosses will be specifically targeted and probably pulled back from the goal line to an onrushing midfielder.

We're heading into the run-in now, what do you make of Southampton's survival chances?

BS: Having followed Saints for over 30 years, I know not to get too carried away!

Bearing in mind we had nine points at the start of December, and looked like clear relegation candidates, Hasenhuttl has worked wonders to even give us a chance of staying up.

He’s been nominated for Premier League Manager of the Month twice during that period – outlining just what a wonderful job he’s done (so far…).

In my view, we’re still essentially hoping Cardiff will be ‘worse’ than us come the end of the season, so there’ll definitely be one eye on their game at Burnley this weekend.

Saints should just about have enough to get across the line. Two wins from our final six games should see us survive.

How can we expect Southampton to line-up against Wolves? What's your predicted XI?

BS: Ralph spent the first four to six weeks of his reign getting to know his squad, and tinkering with formations, but seems to have settled on his preferred XI – certainly in terms of personnel.

He’ll either go 5-4-1, or potentially 4-2-2-2, which is a formation he seems keen to play longer term.

Either way, I’d expect the starting XI to be along the lines of: Angus Gunn, Yan Valery, Maya Yoshida, Jan Bednarek, Jannik Vestergaard, Ryan Bertrand, Oriol Romeu, Pierre-Emile Hojberg, James Ward-Prowse, Nathan Redmond and Danny Ings.

SG: I think we’ll probably revert back to a back four for this one, which will allow us to get an extra midfielder in the side – I think Watford largely won the semi-final on Sunday because they were able to stop Moutinho and Neves dictating things, so I’d like to think that’ll be our plan this weekend too:

4-2-2-2 (sort-of): Gunn; Valery, Bednarek, Yoshida, Bertrand; Romeu, Højbjerg; Ward-Prowse, Armstrong; Redmond, Ings

Are there any injury worries at St Mary's that could play a part this weekend?

BS: Unless there’s been any niggles in training this week then Saints are largely at full strength. Mario Lemina will be touch and go, but Michael Obafemi is out for the remainder of the season.

Danny Ings will return for the game, having not been allowed to play against Liverpool, due to the terms of his loan agreement.

SG: I don’t think we’ve got any new injury concerns, Mario Lemina’s been out since Christmas but has been back in training for a while now, so might come into the equation at some point, but Ings has been fit for a couple of weeks now (but was ineligible to play against Liverpool last week) and Shane Long had a good hour last week so looks to be over the ankle injury he picked up before the international break.

What have you made of Wolves from afar, do you think they have what it takes to finish best of the rest this season?

BS: Wolves have done superbly this season. I’ve seen a fair bit of them on TV and they play with a real freedom.

The likes of Raul Jimenez and Diogo Jota have really stepped up to the plate and performed consistently well. Then, of course, there is Joao Moutinho. One of the best players in the Premier League – he just makes the game of football look so easy!

It’ll be interesting to see if Wolves suffer from ‘second season syndrome’ next year, but with the manager and squad they currently have, you’d have to expect another mid-table finish.

The FA Cup capitulation against Watford could be tough to get over and, as a Saints fan, its hard to know whether that will mean low morale or initiate a response when they visit us.

But many congratulations to Wolves overall on their achievements in 2018/19 – and yes, I think they can hold on to finish ‘best of the rest’.

SG: Wolves have been generally quite impressive, although with the huge caveat that no team in this league should be giving up six points to that Huddersfield side!

I don’t think anyone expected them to be in any relegation danger from the start of the season, but nor did they think they’d be in contention for a Europa League qualifying place.

The performances against the top sides have been particularly impressive, Nuno has got the defensive part of the team very well drilled, especially as I doubt many thought the likes of Doherty or Coady would make the step up as seamlessly as they have done.

The front two seem to have gone largely unnoticed for most of the season, with Jimenez and Jota only really receiving the attention they deserve in the last month or so, and it’ll be largely up to those two to determine whether you can finish 7th or not, as they’ve got plenty of goals in them.

I have a suspicion that Leicester might just nick that “best of the rest” spot as they’ve got the momentum right now and nobody really knows how Wolves are going to react to the Wembley collapse.

I guess Saturday will go a long way to showing whether they’ll get over the disappointment quickly or not!

Your match prediction?

BS: I predicted Wolves to beat us 1-0 earlier in the season and was almost spot on.

As mentioned above, I’m not sure any of us know how the Wembley experience will affect Wolves this weekend, so I’m sitting on the fence – 1-1!

SG: The bookies don’t seem to be able to call it, which is always a fair reflection on how the two teams are matched – despite our lowly position, I think we’re a lot better than 17th suggests, and in a league table since Hasenhüttl took over, we’re 11th, only two points behind Wolves, so I think it’ll be pretty close.

I think my money would be on a scoring draw, perhaps 2-2.

You can keep track of Ben's work on Twitter here, whilst you can follow Steve here.