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Who is Ralph Hasenhuttl? Favourite for the Southampton job profiled
Ralph Hasenhüttl, the favourite for the Southampton manager's job following the sacking of Mark Hughes, enjoyed a successful early playing career as a striker with Austria Vienna, winning three back-to-back titles in the Austrian Bundesliga from 1991-93 as well as a pair of ÖFB Cups after moving to the capital from his hometown club Grazer AK. During his time with the Violets he earned eight Austria caps and scored three goals but was unable to dislodge Toni Polster as the regular starter for the national team.
Hasenhüttl moved into management in Germany, where he spent the last six years of his playing career following two years in Belgium with Lierse and Mechelen, moving up from youth-team coach at Unterhaching to the head coach's job. In his only full season with Unterhaching he took them to fourth place in the third tier, a point short of the play-off spots, and he took over at Aalen, another third division club, from Baden-Württemberg, in 2011.
In 2012 he took Aalen up to Bundesliga 2 but left in 2013 following a dispute over resources and moved to the Bavarian side FC Ingolstadt, then also in the second division. The team from the prosperous city where Audi is based had never played in the top division but Hasenhüttl took them to 10th in Bundesliga 2 in his first season and top position in 2014-15 when they finished four places ahead of the infinitely more wealthy Red Bull Leipzig, then at the beginning of their highly controversial transformation from a community club into a corporate-branded project. Pascal Gross, now of Brighton, began to fulfil his promise under Hasenhüttl's coaching and the midfielder played an influential role in the promotion campaign and the subsequent season when they finished 11th in the top flight.
Having turned down the opportunity to renew his contract, Hasenhüttl's succeeded Ralf Rangnick at Red Bull Leipzig when his predecessor, who had just taken them to promotion after another summer of outlandish investment, took on the sporting director's role. The club signed Timo Werner and Naby Keita among others and finished second in the Bundesliga, 15 points behind Bayern Munich but ahead of Borussia Dortmund, Hoffenheim and the longer-established clubs.
The club authorised another summer of spending in 2017, investing more than €40m net and refused to allow Keita to leave until 2018, in preparation for their debut Champions League campaign, which was ruined by home and away defeats by Besiktas. They finished third in Group G, dropping down to the knockout rounds of the Europa League where they made it to the quarter-finals, beating Napoli and Zenit St Petersburg en route to elimination after a 5-2 trouncing in Marseille.
That defeat was one of four Leipzig suffered in April which effectively cost them a Champions League place and the 51-year-old Hasenhüttl his job. They ended the season in sixth place, two points off third which would have given them direct entry into the senior competition but the manager paid the price for falling short and was succeeded by his predecessor, Rangnick, who returned to the touchline after two years upstairs.
During RB Leipzig's best ever season in 2016-17, their rise to second place was built on remorseless pressing and a narrow 4-2-2-2 system. The club's policy, to recruit agile and physically powerful players, was vital to his strategy and Southampton's squad would be expected to match their stamina and athletic aggression. For him midfield is key to everything and in Mario Lemina, he has a player with the appetite and agility to become his fulcrum. Look out for full-backs as principal attacking agents but the weakness at the heart of Saints' defence was a similar failing at RB in his last season and one which supporters felt he was slow to address.
At each of his four clubs the Austrian has proved himself a shrewd and flexible tactician but perhaps the thing that will please Southampton fans most is his devotion to a committed, assertive style, after a milky couple of seasons following Ronald Koeman's departure. "Proactive play is what the public identifies best with," he told the Bundesliga's official website last year. "It’s about creating an experience for the fans. I think it’s always something special to see a team that’s fully invested in their work and physically determined. Then the fans get the feeling that the boys are giving their all. Without question, that is a distinctive feature of all of my teams so far."