Chelsea starts the New Year with a match against a new look Southampton. Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side is a work in progress and could surprise if they click.
Southampton has attempted to “do a Swansea” for years now. They have not only sold off all their best players year after year, but they have also seen their managers poached after success. When the Saints got ahead of themselves by sacking Claude Puel for being boring despite a good league position, they began to spiral.
Fast forward through a dreadful period where they just about stayed up and they decided to go back to what worked before. They hired the young and high profile Ralph Hasenhuttl to not only turn things around, but recreate the Southampton that was. Hasenhuttl had created an exciting side made of youth at RB Leipzig and the hope is that he can do the same with Southampton.
But Hasenhuttl’s tactics are very, very complicated. When the team understands them, they can soar up the table. Until then they will struggle mightily with the set up. Maurizio Sarri and Chelsea run the risk of being confused and offset by a team trying to learn a very detailed system. That can both help and hurt and as always the Blues must be careful.
Hasenhuttl prefers to set the side up in the formation that suits them best rather than the one he wants. At Leipzig, this took the form of keeping the 4-2-2-2/4-4-2 formation that was in place before him. At Southampton it has mostly been a 4-2-3-1 but he has also flirted with three at the back.
Offensively, Southampton may come off as a bit old fashioned but they merely add a modern twist to something old. Winning the ball means a long ball to the striker. The striker’s job is not to turn with the ball, but instead to flick it onto one of the other attackers that have started runs around them. The purpose of this is to offset the opponent and leave them both confused and caught at the pace of the attack before they have set up defensively.
Defensively, Southampton will look to win the ball back as quickly as possible. Step one is to force the opponent to play the ball wide. Step two is to completely swamp that wide player with a massively overloaded press. If the opponent is somehow able to get inside of Southampton, all the surrounding players will look to press and force the ball to go back out wide. It’s incredibly team oriented, aggressive, and effective if the six pressing players understand when to do what.
Their strength comes in opponents underestimating how aggressive they are. Six players pressing one player and six to eight attackers making runs? It sounds more like something a top six club would do than a relegation battler. But that intensity gives them their edge and it is what Hasenhuttl will want to see.
Their weakness is that this system relies on everyone doing the exact thing they need to every time. If just one player fails to press or run as they should, the whole system can collapse. It will take time to perfect and Southampton has simply not had enough time to learn it yet. Furthermore, it also requires a very high buy in from the squad. If they are not picking up points (as they have not in recent weeks), convincing the players to play such an aggressive style may be difficult.
Sarrismo is a good match offensively against Hasenhuttl’s defense and poor defensively against Hasenhuttl’s offense. Southampton’s fast, high numbered attack threatens to catch the Chelsea high line and zonal defense unprepared. Chelsea’s fast buildup through tight spaces threatens to skip around the aggressive Southampton press and render it useless.
Of course, neither team is really playing the managers’ full tactics as advertised. Both sides are very much a work in progress. Sarri has the benefit of time and should edge Hasenhuttl’s side, but as Arsenal showed, do not underestimate the Austrian manager.