Ralph Hasenhuttl
Ralph Hasenhuttl says Saints will need to have a “fantastic game” if they are to topple Manchester City tomorrow. Pep Guardiola’s side visit St Mary’s looking for a first win in three games after drawing with both Manchester United and West Brom. Those results see City ninth in the table, four points and six places below Saints, albeit with a game in hand. Saints ended a run of seven straight defeats against tomorrow’s opponents with a 1-0 victory in the last meeting of the clubs in July, thanks to a Che Adams wonder-goal.
Ralph Hasenhuttl said “I think we play against a fantastic team, in possession one of the best teams in the world. I think there are different ways to play against such teams but in the end, it is a lot about investing more than the opponent. That’s what we did in the last game, we had a good gameplan and I think it’s a good thing we are not playing worse than that time, because I think we developed our game since then. Every part of our game we are now a better team so I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have a chance to get something. Definitely you need a fantastic game and a fantastic day and it’s a pity that we don’t have more time to prepare for the game, because for this game normally you should have a little bit more time to train on the pitch, to work on a few things, on a few automatisms. We don’t have this but the good thing is on the other side we have played a few games now and the team is very committed, very organised, tactically on a different level now and it would be hopefully a good challenge for us and we can be a good opponent. To defend them around the box you need every player. It also will happen at the weekend we are sometimes defending our box a little bit deeper but we also want to play football, we also want to have the ball, we also want to stress them. They are very well organised now on defence, they don’t concede a lot of goals but we must also find a way through their lines. It’s exactly what I often say, if you want to become a better team, we need exactly these games. We’ve made good progress in the past so we need these games and we want to learn from these games.”
