Saints are reshuffling behind the scenes and have raided Manchester City again, this time for a new Director of Football, read on for all the details and the club statement.

There has clearly been some reshuffling behind the scenes at Saints, Joe Shields left the club after only a couple of months to take the Chelsea pay cheque and my understanding is that there was a behind the scenes power struggle between one boardroom faction in Martin Semmens and another in Matt Crocker and his side of things.

Sport Republic fell on the side of Semmens to run the business side of the club and that saw announcements of Crocker and several others on the playing side of things leaving.

Now we see the first arrival on the footballing side, Jason Wilcox who joins from Manchester City as our new director of football.

Wilcox leaves his role at the Etihad where he was the Academy Director and he like Joe Shields will know our current ex City players well, he will have intimate knowledge of City's recruitment process's and this can only be of benefit to us.

He was also a player in the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers with whom he won the Premier League in 1985 as well as Leeds United amongst others.

According to the club statement Jason will report into Southampton CEO Martin Semmens and take responsibility for all football departments, including the Men’s First Team, Academy and the Women’s and Girls’ programme. Another part of his remit will be player recruitment, an area that will be temporarily overseen by Club Director Rasmus Ankersen until Jason’s arrival.

The 51-year-old will join the club in the summer once he has served his notice period with City, although he will likely be on gardening leave and his influence and knowledge will start to be felt at St Mary's.

Henrik Kraft, Chairman of Southampton FC said:

“We are so pleased to announce Jason as the new Director of Football at Southampton. His strong track record, not only as a player, but also as a senior football executive makes him the ideal candidate to lead our football department going forwards.

“Jason was someone who stood out from the start of our search. He is the perfect fit for Southampton, someone who is hardworking, diligent and passionate about improving himself and those around him.

“At City he has helped develop some fantastic young players and delivered a pathway for them to be able to comfortably adapt into a competitive first team environment.

“We are convinced that Jason will continue the great work he has achieved at Man City here at Southampton and look forward to him joining us in the summer.”

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