Their manager describes it as “a moment they will never forget”. But just 78 days on from the humiliating 9-0 home defeat to Leicester, Southampton will face Brendan Rodgers’ side at the King Power Stadium on Saturday in the return fixture, having turned their season around in spectacular style. Ditching a three-man defence in favour of the high-energy 4-2-2-2 formation that served him so well in guiding RB Leipzig to second place in their debut Bundesliga season in 2017, Ralph Hasenhüttl has navigated Southampton away from the bottom three and towards safety after collecting 16 points from their past eight matches. Yet the Austrian, who spent most of the summer in 2013 riding between Borussia Dortmund’s and Borussia Mönchengladbach’s training camps on his mountain bike and spying on their sessions with a pair of binoculars when he was out of work, admitted even he had his doubts about his methods after that traumatic night at St Mary’s. “There was a moment when I also must be self-critical and see that I was on the wrong path,” says Hasenhüttl. “This was the not the way I wanted to play normally. When you lose the path it’s like with a player – you must be self-critical and honest with yourself. “I think you have to find the right decision and the right solutions. And then you must say: ‘OK you’ve got no more stable in going back deeper, deeper, deeper, so you must come again on the front foot.’ This was a brave decision – when someone has to be brave then it’s first the manager. “And then the players can follow. But if you’re not brave how can they follow? I think it’s important that I showed the right direction again and the players are following.” The 52-year-old former centre‑forward who won eight caps for his country once had a trial at Chelsea under Glenn Hoddle and had always wanted to manage in the Premier League before he was finally handed the opportunity by Southampton in December 2018. Having steered the Saints away from relegation trouble last season with two games to spare, Hasenhüttl had been expected to build on their momentum. But the defeat against Leicester – the worst in the club’s 134-year history – was stark evidence that something needed to change, even if the thought of resigning never even crossed his mind. “No, never. I never thought about walking away,” he says. “I only thought about whether my club trusts me and I want to show that I am not at the end of my ideas and how I wanted to turn the tables. I can tell you that we have never stopped trying everything and, finally, the success came back.” Hasenhüttl adds: “A few days ago I had an interview with a German newspaper and they asked me if I feared I could get sacked after this match. I said: ‘If you lose one match 9-0 and you still stay alive you lose any fear you have.’ This is exactly the moment I have. I feel I have a club which is absolutely behind me and the way we want to work here. They can see our philosophy and I’m happy that my team is showing we can be more successful. For sure it makes it more fun in the moment.” The reintroduction of the tried and tested system honed in Germany has certainly helped Southampton’s cause, having seen his side concede just 13 goals in 11 Premier League games since they last faced Leicester. While fringe players such as the defender Jack Stephens and the wide man Stuart Armstrong have stepped up in recent weeks, it has been the performances of the captain, James Ward-Prowse, and the forward Danny Ings – who, as Gareth Southgate will surely have taken note, has 13 league goals this season – that have offered tangible proof Hasenhüttl is finally getting his message across. “It took a long time to not only get the right shape but the right behaviour in this shape,” he admits. “And this is a lot about being brave and on the front foot. It’s not enough to show them and speak about this, it’s to live this system and live this behaviour. It took a long time and finally in the last month I had the feeling that it clicked in the minds. You could feel it. “Every player is now absolutely convinced about what we are doing. Even against the big teams we play with a back four, we changed the shape and stood on the gameplan and were successful.” Southampton lost their next three matches after the defeat to Leicester, before two morale-boosting home victories against fellow strugglers Norwich and Watford. Now unbeaten in their last five, they will travel to the east Midlands having won 2-1 there last season despite Yan Valery’s red card just before half‑time. “Playing the last two games against them with one man down is enough I think!” says Hasenhüttl with a laugh. “The way we play now is a different one not just because of the shape but because of the behaviour. We are back to our basics, our automatism, and this is the only way to be successful again. Let’s have a look at how good we are.” There will no hiding from what happened last time, however. “We will speak about it definitely as a topic in our preparing for the game,” he adds of the 9-0 defeat. “In what way I’m not so sure at the moment. But we cannot make it unhappen, this result happened and as I said we can take energy out of this result. What the team showed after this result, where we knew it was an absolute disaster for us, was absolutely outrageous from the mentality and character to fight back to a successful way. When you look now how the team is playing it looks completely different and I cannot praise them enough for the reaction they’ve showed. Maybe a thank you for this evening because it was an important one for us.” The Guardian Sport