Ralph Hasenhuttl's Antonio Conte plan for Southampton and surprise Stuart Armstrong decision

To the disappointment of many fans, Ralph Hasenhuttl persisted with his 3-5-2 formation against Watford after using it in both the Saints' previous two pre-season friendlies in Austria, making it more and more likely he’ll be using it to go toe-to-toe against Antonio Conte's Tottenham on the Premier League’s opening day.

The Austrian coach used the tactic to varying success against RB Leipzig and SK Austria Klagenfurt before again putting it into practice at Grosvenor Vale. The difference this time was that he named the strongest starting XI so far seen in pre-season which further highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses of the tactic.

For the most part, the Saints were defensively solid. They grew into the game but didn’t allow all that many clear-cut chances on their goal from open play, with three centre-backs giving them extra cover and reducing the margin for error if one of them makes a mistake.

The flip side of this is that there’s theoretically one less player contributing to attacks when Saints have the ball, with the counteractive measure of playing with two high and wide wing-backs still not solving the problem of a lack of creativity in the final third.

There are fixes to this problem, though. One of them is time. At points against the Hornets, it looked like Southampton’s forwards were piling up on one another - with Watford’s towering centre-backs effectively cutting off the long ball and leaving Adam Armstrong to try and drop deep to receive the ball alongside Joe Aribo and James Ward-Prowse. Stuart Armstrong's drifting role allowed him more space and time on the ball and most of the Saints’ best moves came via the Scotsman, but in general, the whole squad will need more time to adjust to this