Jurgen Klopp’s Takumi Minamino fears echoed by Ralph Hasenhuttl despite heroics

Takumi Minamino delivered another impressive performance for Southampton in the 1-1 draw with Chelsea – but manager Ralph Hasenhuttl was quick to point out his flaws.

The Saints held Thomas Tuchel's Blues side to a hard-fought draw on Saturday, with Minamino scoring with their only attack of the first half.

It was a superbly-struck goal from the on-loan Liverpool star, after latching onto Nathan Redmond's smart through-ball to put Saints ahead against the run of play on the south coast.

Mason Mount had to slot a penalty to rescue Chelsea a point, with Saints ending their record run of six-straight Premier League defeats.

In what has been an impressive start to his Southampton career, Minamino's goal was his second in three appearances since arriving on loan from Liverpool in the January transfer window.

But, while Hasenhuttl has been impressed with his impact so far, the manager still has reservations over the defensive side of his game.

Speaking to BT Sport, he said: "With the ball, he's definitely a win for us.

"Off the ball, still has to do a little bit more. But he will learn this. This is not something you learn form one thing to the next, it will take a bit of time.

"Yes today against such a strong side, it was important that everybody was working."

And it seems Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has the same concerns, despite having high hopes for the Japan international.

Speaking after sending Minamino out on loan to their Premier League rivals, Klopp suggested the former Red Bull Salzburg forward must improve his defensive work.

He said: "Having options is the only reason you can give a player to another club.

"We were active in this situation, though, they asked and we did not say there was ‘no chance'.

"So, we thought about it and Takumi is an incredible player but we didn’t give him enough chances. That’s the truth.

"And that was for different reasons, sometimes it was just because of his size and that was because of our problems in defence – we were not tall enough and then with Takumi on the pitch we had to think how could we do that.

"Defending set pieces is a very important part, for the player it’s not too interesting and for the journalists it’s probably not too interesting but in some moments these kind of things make the difference when one player is playing but the other is not.

"When Southampton came up, there were not a lot of clubs where I thought it made sense to let him go, but Southampton made a lot of sense."

Source: Read Full Article