FORMER Premier League defender Micah Richards slams Saints fans for their chants towards Ralph Hasenhuttl, declaring: “I don’t know what they want him to do.”
A section of the travelling supporters turned on the Austrian boss during the 3-0 defeat to Brentford, as Saints slipped to a seventh loss in 10 Premier League matches.
They chanted ‘sacked in the morning’ and ‘don’t know what you’re doing’ to the 54-year-old, who has been at the helm since December 2018.
The reaction followed Hasenhuttl bringing on defensive midfielder Oriol Romeu from the bench with the team three goals behind in the closing stages.
However, Richards – who is a league winner with Manchester City and former England international – passionately insisted fans should be more patient with their manager.
"This is what I mean about football, football is just brutal," the pundit told BBC 5 Live's Monday Night Club show.
"We were almost lauding Hasenhuttl for coping with losing the likes of (Jannik) Vestergaard in the back, who was a great player for them.
"Then we talk about how good they are at bringing youngsters through, they are going to be up and down, young players are going to make more mistakes than senior players.
“But with young players, he's given them their debuts and their chances to shine. He's brought through some really good youth players and now the fans are turning on him!”
He added: "What do you expect with the budget and young players factor- what is it that they want? They aren't going out spending multi-millions of pounds on players every single year.
“I'm with Adam Crafton (Athletic Journalist), I had Southampton to go down. As soon as they lost (Danny) Ings, I thought it was over for them.
“He's done an absolutely brilliant job and it just shows you want fans are and what more do they want him to do with the resources that he has? I don't know what they want him to do."
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