FORMER Saints boss Will Still admitted he is “delighted” to see the club at the top end of the Championship table as he reflected on his short spell in charge.
Still, 33, was sacked after 13 league games this season, leaving the club 21st in the division, and put his hands up to several mistakes he made.
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Saints, now under the charge of Tonda Eckert, are competing for automatic promotion and are at least guaranteed a play-off place.
Belgian-born Still felt that a cultural difference made his job harder. Having never managed in England before, he said he felt like a foreigner at times.
“There was such a massive difference culturally in the style of football, the way a team is managed, the way the players behave, the way training is set up,” he told Sky Sports.
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Southampton manager Will Still during their 3-1 defeat to Bristol City. (Image: PA)
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“I was in an accelerated top-up course of English. Ultimately, I ran out of time. I’m delighted they are where they are because the supporters deserve to go back up.
“But I will always have this part of regret that I didn’t get it right, and I ran out of time. Over here in England, I came across as a nice guy.
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“I think Johannes [Spors] even says it in an interview after I got sacked. Maybe I was too nice – in France, I was considered someone who was very honest.
“Now, on reflection, it was the language that I used, my body language, what I said to the press and when I said it. It was a great learning curve.”
Still also believes the size of the Saints squad did not help, and felt that many areas of the club were not ‘in sync’ when he arrived.
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Southampton addressed their bulky squad in the winter window, offloading six and adding two new faces in addition to James Bree’s return.
Still also admitted he should have made better use of captain Jack Stephens, who dropped to the bench at the end of his tenure in charge.
“I can think of a load of reasons why it didn’t work out. Our playing squad was massive, and we had to skim through that,” he added.
“They finally got to a place where they had a squad they needed and want. There was stuff that had gone on in the years before that, and not everyone was in sync.
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“That was the conversation we had with Johannes. We said that it needed time, and ultimately, they have got it right. They have the result they wanted.
Former Saints manager Will Still during their game against Portsmouth at St Mary’s. (Image: Stuart Martin)
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“That’s life, and football moves on. There are things that I did wrong, I made mistakes, and I hold my hands up every day to that.
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“But I also knew there were so many things we had to get through to get it right. There were still good performances in there.
“In the League Cup against Liverpool… Swansea at home we played well. When you wanted it to click, it never quite fell into place.”
The best example of that was when Ross Stewart suffered a lengthy injury days after Still appeared to have found a goalscoring solution.
“We won 2-1 at Sheffield United, and everyone said, ‘You can’t play Roscoe in this, he will get injured’, but we needed to build consistency,” he reflects.
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“Then we went to Derby on the Saturday, drew 1-1, and Ross got injured. Every time we thought we were building momentum, something happened.
“Flynn Downes struggled with illness in the past, and it never fell into place. I should have used Jack Stephens in a different way.
“I should have used a load of players differently, but there were so many players that you got overloaded with what we needed to do.”
