Ralph Hasenhuttl has admitted he could retire when his Southampton contract expires in 2024.
Hasenhuttl arrived at St Mary's in December 2018 and has helped the club keep their heads above water in the Premier League on a limited budget ever since. He penned a new four-year contract in the summer of 2020, but the chances of him remaining on the south coast after that are dwindling.
In an interview with German magazine Kicker, Hasenhuttl even conceded that he could call time on his coaching career altogether at the end of the 2023/24 campaign.
"I always wanted to prove to myself that I could very well work for a club for a longer period of time,” he explained. "Hopefully it will be five-and-a-half-years here, that’s a damn long time in modern football, and then that’s probably it.
“Five-and-a-half-years in the Premier League, that’s a lot of energy, regardless of job satisfaction. I can’t imagine that I want to do anything else in coaching after that.
“And saying no to everything else is also a yes to yourself, and I want that. That’s the solid plan and I hope I have the strength to pull it off. I want to put Southampton on a very healthy footing by 2024, but then that is it.
“I’ll be 57-years-old. I’d like to experience other things and not sit on the bench like Roy Hodgson at 74. Definitely not.”
Asked about his comments before Southampton's trip to Tottenham on Wednesday, Hasenhuttl did little to quell speculation over his long-term future.
"I have a contract until 2024 and this is quite a long time, it is for me not understandable why we speak about the topic. This is nothing new, I have spoken about it in the past," he said.
Source : 90min