I held back on writing this verdict, it was always going to be scathing, but I sensed something was about to happen and on Sunday night came the announcement that Will Still was gone, I don't think anyone who watched this game was surprised.

When I gave my verdict four games ago after the draw with Swansea City, I was scathing of Will Still, I used phrases such as "Players lacking in confidence" "Playing with fear" " A manager who has no faith in his players or indeed in himself" "No pattern in the play" "Players not knowing the formation & where they should be in it" "Poor team selection & baffling substitutions" to name just a few.

Some people took me to task over this and told me I was wrong, that it was getting better, I disagreed with that I could see a decent squad by Championship standards, but it was a fragile one and one that was becoming disillusioned with its manager.

That proved to be the case only days later, when a good opening 30 minutes then saw us collapse and concede sloppy goals and fall to defeat, it was pretty much the same at Blackburn and I saw a manager who did not know what to do next other than change and then change again.

On Saturday Preston came and showed what a well drilled and organised side can achieve, we were not slaughtered or on our back foot, this was not the defeats of last season where we were constantly overrun and out played, we had 64% possession, but Preston just sat back and waited for us to implode, hitting us just before the break and then finishing us off as we pushed forward for an unlikely equaliser in the dying minutes of injury time.

In truth it was expected, Still had done the same things and he had got the same results, a third straight defeat and just a single League win, since the opening day of the season and how lucky was that one.

His starting line up was again suspect, 3 central defenders with 2 full backs who are playing as wing backs, a position they are not suited for and it was hard to see just who was playing where.

At half time he changed formations and brought on two subs, but things improved little, Tom Fellows having the one ray of hope when he saw a superb shot produce a save that matched it as somehow the keeper got the briefest of fingers to it, but enough to push it on to the underside of the bar.

That was perhaps the moment when everyone knew that the time was up for the manager.

By the end of the game he had thrown on all his subs in desperation, we had just 3 defenders on the pitch, 1 midfielder & 6 attackers, it was schoolboy substitutions, we were an absolute shambles, it was no surprise that Preston scored a second in injury time.

I had an inkling that something was afoot on Friday when a source told me that the club had sacked 1st team coach Carl Martin last Monday, this had not been announced and was indeed not confirmed until Sunday evening.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, I felt that part of the problem was that Still did not seem to be on the same page as his coaching staff, during games he was usually an isolated figure rarely speaking to his coaches during games.

How could we hope to succeed with this set up, it was a recipe for disaster.

At the start of the season, things did not seem too bad, we won the opening game against Wrexham albeit with two late goals and a good well earned point at Ipswich Town, but after that it started to go downhill fast and in my opinion the problem was clear, the manager was struggling, he was not experienced enough to rejuvenate the squad and deal with difficult issues.

By the end of the transfer window he had too many players to choose from and it was too easy to drop players after one bad performance and bring them off at half time, his only answer to every problem was to change things and change them again.

Perhaps Will Still will go on to be a great manager, but he was not ready for this step up and he needed to go to a club that was settled, not one that was in turmoil with issues to be dealt with.

So now we go to Queens Park Rangers with just two coaches, plus U21 coach Tonda Eckhert who will take charge., but to be honest that cannot be worse than what we have witnessed in the past couple of months.

The good thing is that this article is not me ranting on about doing the same things and getting the same results when we go to QPR, it is an article of hope, the hope that Johannes Spors has learned something, I could see why he would have gone for Will Still, but he was never going to be big enough to deal with the issues that this club currently has.

Now we need someone to come in and take charge with experience in English football and perhaps in this division, early names mentioned include ex managers Ralph Hasenhuttl & Russell Martin and also Steven Gerrard & Michael Carrick.

I would say there isn't a Saints supporter who would welcome back Martin, it would be perhaps 50% who would not be upset if Ralph came back and most would feel that Steven Gerrard has not managed in this type of situation so they would rule him out.

That would leave Michael Carrick, he had a career at the highest level and has coaching experience at Manchester United where he spent 5 years as a first team coach after retiring and then his only managerial post to date at Middlesbrough where after joining in October 2022, he took them from 21st place in the Championship to the play off semi finals.

In his second season he led the club to 8th and a League Cup semi final, his 3rd season would be his last after 10th last year he was sacked in the summer.

So from the initial names in the hat Carrick would seem to be the best qualified.

All Photos Via Reuters

underweststand added 09:51 - Nov 3 Inevitable? ..maybe, but I think it's tough on Will but just highlights the standard required - even in the Championship - let alone Prem. League. Also shows the difference in the European Leagues where only clubs who qualify for Euro games have any real quality. Football managers need to be thick-skinned and realise that even half-a-dozen bad results means alarm bells ring, and Club owners and fans start to get restless. Here I think that, regardless of tactics, the psychological effect of " failure" finally got to Will, who is still young in the sport and has players in his generation, whilst young players are still finding their feet in a squad still suffering the effects of last season's deplorable performances. REPLACEMENT ? . Someone who knows the club might help. Not Lallala who will certainly make a good manager sometime in the future. Hasenhuttl ?...maybe, but he is closing on 60 and not likely to be so active on the training pitch with the squad, and doesn't have a recognised striker to fit his formation. Russell Martin ? - putting aside his promotion in a year - when no team was good enough to stay up in the Prem. his "successful" formation with 60+% possession and only half-a-dozen creative attacks every game worked better than my sleeping pills. Quite simply, with all the incoming players since Hasenhuttl's time, the club has continually failed miserably to find a good striker good enough to replace Ings. I don't envy whoever gets the task, as the new man will also be without many of his best players for another 6-8 weeks and an uncertain transfer window on the horizon. One can hope he doesn't directly revert to the " old guard " who were so poor last season.

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SaintPaulVW added 09:52 - Nov 3 Just hope that Sports Republic have learned from what has turned out to be another expensive failure. Need to drop this nonsense about 'long term projects' if manager must get immediate results to stay in the post. However any manager does need to show progress even if they lose. Still just went into reverse and the team went backwards. Performance against Preston was weak. If the coach had been fired then clearly the players could see the writing was on the wall for WS.

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kingolaf added 09:53 - Nov 3 Carrick or Gerrard for me. Caveat for Gerrard is that he would have Beale with him.
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davidargyll added 10:09 - Nov 3 So far as the game was concerned, PNE were, as has been said, very well drilled and from which we could learn a lot: 1. They kept a very firm back line (5) which was very tough to penetrate and were not suckered forward, thus never being caught in the break; 2. They pressed a lot and continually throughout the game; 3. Proved that possession means so much less than harrying the oppo off the ball; 4. Any of our players who did manage to get the ball was immediately tackled by at least one of theirs, often two and even occasionally three; 5. When they got the ball they went forward regardless of who was in the way; what did we do? as we did so much of under RM, turn inside and more ofter than not go backwards. And finally re WS, for a while I knew, and indeed said, that he was a dead man walking. And so it proved. How anybody can admit to not knowing what to do and how to get out of the mess he had helped to create and thinks he has any future is beyond me. So in a funny way I actually think that SR did the decent thing and put him out of his misery. One thing I did notice during the match, which only reinforced my view from a month back that he was losing/had lost the D/R: when there was a break in play, of the players who came to the side for a drink/a word, barely any of them paid any attention to WS but only to his assistants. Spoke volumes …

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SanMarco added 10:48 - Nov 3 Nick got this one right!! I was surprised at how quickly he turned against Still but the last three games have certainly made us all see why. So yet another managerial 'gamble' fails. Still was too inexperienced. In this league he needed time as an assistant or something. He looked bewildered pretty early on. I hoped he would learn quickly but the bitter truth is that even the two games we won were pretty narrow victories. Yes, there was some bad luck but I wouldn't say we deserve to have any more points than we've got. Who next? Who knows - I just hope it is someone with experience who is capable of leading this team to mid-table or above. Some 'left field' appointment who might (but given that it is SR probably won't) be good in the long term is not what is needed. We may be in the relegation places by the time he is in situ...

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DorsetIan added 11:08 - Nov 3 The big issue that we've got is that most of us on here have got more experience following the English game and the Championship than Johannes Spors. He is just as out of his depth in the league as Still was and we can only hope that he had learnt quickly at Southampton. We really need an 'old school' manager who knows what he is doing and who can dominate and inspire the dressing room. But maybe such managers don't exist any more.

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dellboysaint added 11:21 - Nov 3 Steve Gerard for me. Complete opposite to Will Still who had little or no experience in the game. Gerard is someone who might win the respect of the players as opposed to Russell Martin’s chumminess. Martin is largely responsible for the team playing sideways or backwards. We have forgotten how to attack. Gerard or Carrick for me.
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Monksway added 17:55 - Nov 3 If only Will hadn't appointed his brother Stan as the defensive coach.
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