This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…
Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl has cleared up the mystery surrounding Kevin Danso while speaking to the media ahead of Saturday evening’s game against West Ham.
The 21-year-old defender – who arrived at St Mary’s in the final hours of the summer transfer window on a season-long loan deal from Augsburg – has made just six Premier League appearances this season, with only three of them coming as starts.
In recent weeks, Danso hasn’t played a single minute of action since the 2-1 defeat against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on November 2nd, and failed to make Hasenhuttl’s squad for the games against Arsenal, Newcastle and Watford.
However, the former RB Leipzig boss has now explained why.
What did he say?
Hasenhuttl told The Daily Echo: “He must develop his game and we will help him. He would like to play more but we have now found a first XI that has played the last four games.
“The automatism they are building is the reason we didn’t rotate even though we had three games in a week. They did it well three times, so we stayed with the same squad and did it well three times.”
Aside from the fact that the backline is currently settled, Hasenhuttl also explained that Danso is struggling fitness-wise.
He said: “Last game he had problems with his knees, so he wasn’t in the squad. This week he could train and hopefully he stays fit.”
Has cleared up the mystery
Before The Daily Echo released these quotes on Friday, there had been no news on Danso, nor had there been any update on his fitness or reason for his absence.
That prompted us to write a piece outlining how it appears as if Hasenhuttl had gone cold on his fellow Austrian, despite previously speaking quite highly of the former MK Dons youth player before the 1-1 draw against Manchester United earlier in the season.
“He showed from the first day he was here that he knows how to defend. He knows how to play football and, physically, has very good options. He is very quick and also good at jumping for headers. At this age, he is very experienced because he played a lot of games in Germany and this signing was a really good one.”
However, we can all now rest assured that the real reason behind Danso’s absence is, quite simply, because of fitness issues as well as the fact that Hasenhuttl has settled on a back four which has merited some decent results in recent weeks, with wins over Norwich and Watford and a draw away to Arsenal.
At last, the mystery is over.
In other news, take a look at the XI that we think Hasenhuttl should start with against West Ham on Saturday…
