Ralph Hasenhüttl’s arrival at Southampton in December 2018 started a new era at St. Mary’s stadium as the fans witnessed a transformation from a possession-based side to a side that plays a high-tempo and a high-pressing style of football. Under the Austrian manager, Southampton is a team that, regardless of the opposition, plays attacking football and likes to take the game against the opponent by pressing them with high intensity in their own half.
Southampton’s PPDA metric of 8.16 was the lowest during the previous season and they have the lowest PPDA of 6.56 during the ongoing season as well. These metrics show that the Saints press with the highest intensity amongst the other Premier League teams.
On their day, Hasenhüttl’s Southampton can be a difficult side to play against. Their intense high-pressing can trouble even the best teams, as the 2-2 draw against Manchester United and the 1-0 win against Manchester City during the latter half of the previous season exemplified it.
Having said that, the high-press high-line system is still a work in progress as some prominent issues on the defensive side were exposed by the likes of Crystal Palace, Tottenham, and Brentford as the Saints conceded eight goals in their first three games of the 20/21 season.
In this tactical analysis in the form of a scout report, we seek to analyse the major causes of the defensive issues within Hasenhüttl’s pressing system. However, before delving deep into the problems, let us begin by presenting an introductory analysis of their pressing game in the next section.
Southampton’s high-pressing tactics under Hasenhüttl
Hasenhüttl’s basic principles of play are built around four parts of the game – in possession, losing the ball, winning the ball, and working against the ball. While the first principle defines his team’s behavior on the ball, the remaining three principles are related to their pressing system as we shall see in this section.
Losing the ball and winning the ball principles correlate to the counter-pressing/gegenpressing tactic. It requires players to immediately press and attempt to win the ball back rather than regrouping into their tactical shape after losing possession in the opposition half. The idea behind this tactic is to deny the opposition time to construct an attack while they are disoriented. Moreover, it also allows recovering the ball in advanced positions. Since the attacking players do not fall back, the defensive line continues to hold the high line. The following image shows an example where Oriol Romeus pass was intercepted by a Brentford player.
The following figure shows Southamptons reaction to losing possession. Rather than falling into a defensive shape, the players conducted a counter-press wherein the ball-near players pressed the man in possession while the ball-far players closely marked the Brentford players to cut all the short passing options.
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