Southampton have appointed Mark Hughes as their new manager and former player Matt Le Tissier believes it’s the right appointment.
Mauricio Pellegrino was sacked after winning just one of his last 17 league matches as Southampton boss. The Saints are in the relegation battle right now and Hughes will have a massive challenge ahead of him.
Saints are yet to face Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City, Everton and West Ham in the league.
The former Stoke City boss is hardly an inspiring choice. He was sacked by the Potters in January after a poor start to the season. However, the Southampton legend Matt Le Tissier believes Hughes has a wealth of experience and his knowledge of the club makes him the perfect candidate.
Le Tissier said: “Mark has managed in this league for a long, long time, more than 400 games. I think it is a pretty good appointment from my perspective. The situation we are in is not a great one and we don’t need a manager coming in who doesn’t know the players, doesn’t know the league. So Mark would seem to be with the club’s way of thinking. I don’t think he has been down this end of the table too many times in his career. He obviously did not have a great season at Stoke this year but as far as I can remember I think it was the first time he had a team really struggling against relegation. He has managed some big teams. He has a wealth of experience of the game; I played with him for a couple of seasons down in Southampton. He has knowledge of the club, although it was a different stadium when he was playing back then, it was that long ago. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed he can keep us up this season first and foremost, then get us to kick on again next season.”
Hughes will certainly have a talented squad at his disposal and it will be interesting to see whether he manages to get the best out of them. The likes of Boufal, Carrillo, Tadic, Romeu, Hojbjerg, Ward-Prowse, Forster, Lemina, Cedric and Bertrand are all solid top half players who are lacking in confidence right now.
If Hughes can lift the morale of his players, Southampton will have a decent chance of staying up.
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