RALPH Hasenhuttl admits his team can sometimes be “too nice” and insists “sometimes it is important to be a little bit nasty” as Saints look to end their woeful Premier League run. Hasenhuttl’s side have collected just one point from their past eight league matches, a streak which has seen them tumble down to 14th in the table, now just seven points clear of the relegation zone. Speaking after Tuesday night’s 3-0 loss at Leeds, boss Hasenhuttl described Saints as a “nice opponent” to come up against, something he will hope to change tomorrow evening.
Speaking ahead of Saints’ clash with Everton at Goodison Park, Ralph Hasenhuttl said: “We are definitely sometimes a little bit too nice, or we have been in the last weeks a little bit too nice. When we have an opposition player laying in our box, then we play the ball out and when the opposition doesn’t win the ball back they make tactical fouls to stop our attacks. This is something of the behaviour we have here, a little bit too nice. But it is hard to change this because this is our mentality, our character. And the only problem is that you always get punished when you are nice or correct and sticking to the rules. Sometimes it is important to be a little bit nasty. We are nasty to be aggressive, and to run a lot and to be always attacking like wild but definitely in this part we are not the smartest ones.”
During his time managing in Germany, Hasenhuttl helped guide FC Ingolstadt into Bundesliga, by winning the second tier in the 2014-15 campaign, losing just four games along the way. And the 53-year-old says that experience shows he is capable of making his teams harder to play against. Asked if he has in his career had to develop a side to become nastier to improve results,
Ralph Hasenhuttl said: “Yes I have, but to be honest I changed this behaviour as a manager also. Because I had a year when I was promoted with Ingolstadt and we were I think the most nasty team in the league. To be honest, in the end it doesn’t make you happy, also not as a manager. Because it is a kind of behaviour we have here which is normally why I love English football so much because it is always honest and the players don’t roll away, they try to stay on their feet and it is still far away from all the other leagues in the world. The football is more honest and this is why I like it so much.”
