Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl is hopeful that the injury to Sofaine Boufal is “not that bad” following the 2-1 defeat to Burnley.
Boufal limped off during Southampton’s loss against Burnley and was replaced by Moussa Djenepo, but Hasenhuttl hopes that it is not too serious.
Speaking to the Daily Echo, Hasenhuttl said:
Sofiane’s ankle is hopefully not that bad.
We tried to stick to the game plan against Burnley and had a few good chances in the first half, but after Sofiane’s injury and with Reddy also out it did not helping our automatism.
READ SOUTHAMPTON VERDICT
After Boufal came off, Djenepo struggled to get into the game and make an impact. At times, he found himself free on the left wing but opted against driving at the Burnley defence and played the safe pass to Ryan Bertrand, whereas Boufal was committing defenders and trying to make things happen in the final third before he limped off the pitch.
In the Premier League this season, Boufal has averaged 0.7 key passes and 2.7 dribbles per game, whilst Djenepo has managed 0.4 and 2.4 in those categories. The dribbling is close between the two, but Boufal almost averaging double as many key passes per game is a huge difference. It highlights how direct he is with his approach to the match and how Boufal tries to create chances for his teammates in the final third, with Djenepo reluctant to play those killer balls.
This means that Boufal being injured for an extended period of time could be a big blow, given Djenepo’s lack of creativity in comparison to the Morrocan forward.
Hasenhuttl said that losing Boufal and Redmond affected their performance and the chance creation stats from Boufal show why that may have been the case – as they lacked another player to create the chances for Danny Ings and Shane Long.
