Southampton manager Mark Hughes says that his team will be on the front foot from the start of their latest Premier League clash against Leicester City at St Mary’s on Saturday, which will come as music to the ears of Saints fans.
A decent summer in the transfer market mean that expectations are high that the south coast outfit will improve on a disastrous 2017/18 campaign, in which they narrowly avoided relegation to the Championship with a 17th-place finish.
One point from two matches is perhaps not the start Hughes would have been hoping for, with his team struggling and still looking low on confidence in the first 45 minutes of both top-flight matches with Burnley and Everton, before putting in much improved second-half displays.
The Welshman will know that his side need to be at it from the first whistle as Claude Puel returns to St Mary’s for the second time since he was sacked in the summer of 2017, as he alluded to in his pre-match press conference.
The 54-year-old said, via The Daily Echo: “The opening periods of games are the chance to state your intentions for the game and you can set markers down for the rest of the game as well, so you’ve got to start brightly and make sure you can maintain that if you can. We will try and do that.
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“We were probably guilty against Burnley of showing a little bit too much apprehension you can maybe call it, maybe anxiety from last year, but there’s no need for it.
“There is no reason we should have that now and we have to make sure we are on the front foot, competitive and asking questions of teams when they come to our home ground.”
The return of the energetic Stuart Armstrong from injury could be a big boost against the Foxes, with the former Celtic man impressing so far with his positive displays, while Danny Ings should once again get the nod up top.
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