Is there a Pochettino-shaped carrot dangling in front of Southampton right now?

Southampton may not be long for Ralph Hasenhuttl, and with such a high-profile potential replacement available, you can see the temptation.

It wasn’t so much that Southampton lost to Aston Villa, it was the way in which they did so. This was one of the more pallid games that the Premier League has offered so far this season, won by a scrambled first-half goal. Southampton managed just one shot on target all evening; it wasn’t included on the post-match highlights. It was another narrow defeat to moderate opposition, a problem that precedes this campaign.

Similarly, it’s hardly as though Southampton have had a terrible start. They’ve lost four of their first seven games, but two of those came against Spurs and Manchester United and they haven’t lost by more than the odd goal since the first weekend of the season.

As football breaks up for the first international break they’re in 14th place. They finished last season in 15th.

The sack race odds have been slashed in the last few days to such a point that Ralph Hasenhuttl is now the clear second favourite to be the next Premier League manager to be sacked, behind Brendan Rodgers but comfortably ahead of the rest of the pack. But is this idle speculation, or is there something more driving this apparent collapse in confidence?

There is certainly something striking about this happening now, when Hasenhuttl remains the only manager to have survived two nine-goal drubbings at a club. Pressure built upon him at those points, but on both occasions the directors opted to stick. It would be strikingly ironic if he was sacked after a run during which there have only been defeats by one goal, considering what he went through before.

And it was hardly as though they came into the new season with particularly low or high ambitions in the first place. Southampton got through the summer without losing any of their most-prized assets, and with some interesting new additions. Gavin Bazunu, Armel Bella-Kotchap and Romeo Lavia are all young but have bags of potential. Bazunu in particular has acquitted himself well, supplanting both Alex McCarthy and Willy Caballero.

But Southampton’s problems on the pitch are established. When they beat Norwich City 2-0 at St Mary’s on the last Saturday of February, the three points lifted them to ninth place, with a third of the season still to play. They took just five points from their last 12 games and ended up in 15th.

With each Premier League place being worth…