Southampton boss not given up hope of Armando Broja transfer

The 20-year-old Chelsea academy forward is set to return to Stamford Bridge at the end of the current campaign, when his season-long loan deal with Saints will expire.

Already an Albanian international and goalscorer in the Dutch Eredivisie, Broja’s reputation has rocketed during his first full season as a Premier League player.

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When it was suggested that Broja may not be at the club come August, Hasenhuttl quipped: “Let’s have a look what we do next season, it is interesting that you know everything about Armando Broja. We will have definitely a good young group next season, however it looks.”

Armando Broja has a promising future at just 20-years-old (Pic: Stuart Martin)

However, later asked if there was any progress on securing the Slough-born striker’s future, the Austrian responded: “At this moment it is not easy to negotiate with Chelsea. There is no question, and it is not surprising that I want him to stay here another year. I know this would be good for him.”

Returning from Vitesse Arnhem, Broja featured for Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel during pre-season – scoring at AFC Bournemouth – before completing a loan deal with Saints down the road just over a week later.

He has since scored six Premier League goals. However, only one of those has come since mid-January, in a 3-2 win at Tottenham Hotspur.

That is his only goalscoring return in his last 13 Premier League matches, although he also propelled a rotated Saints side into the FA Cup quarter-final via a goal and winning a penalty versus West Ham in March.

Armando Broja celebrates sealing a St Mary's win over West Ham (Pic: PA)

“The interesting thing is that young players are not allowed to have, two, three or four bad games because it is not understandable,” Hasenhuttl said, of the young striker.

“But it is understandable. After the first big impact he made in the league everybody knows him now and everybody is taking care of him.

“It is much harder. I know this as a striker. If nobody knows you and does not know your strengths, then it is easier to compete.

“It is completely normal that there comes a moment when you have a little bit of a setback. The important thing is that he starts working hard again and fighting to be dangerous up front.”

Saints manager Ralph Hasenhuttl (Pic: Stuart Martin)

He continued: “The more you do for the team, the more you invest, the earlier you get back to the situation where you get chances.

“At the moment when he plays, the number of chances is going down. He needs to invest a little bit more in some moments.

“Sometimes he must learn how to set his body. We have good examples of this in the team at the moment and they show this in an impressive way.

“It is good for young players to have situations like this, to go through it. This was the reason he came to us, to learn and to get better. It has been a very important first season for him.”

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