Tonda Eckert - Official: Contract until 2027

[Badger]

Wonder if Tonda will look to bring in any coaches to support him, possibly from previous clubs he’s worked at. Or if he’ll be allowed to. 
 

The roles may already be permanently filled from his U21 colleagues, but not sure if others have been put in place to assist Lallana. 

[West end Saints]

Came in when we had 0 confidence and struggling.

Performing, factually (points /GD) as one of worst teams in the league.

Has been manager for 6 games.

For those 6 games we have been the best team in the championship - literally top of the 6 game current form table.

We have gone from a point below skates, 10 points below Bristol in 5th, 13 points below Middlesbrough in 2nd 

To

To 10 points clear of skates, to 2 points below Bristol to 9 points Middlesbrough.

I would say unlikely any manager would have done better.

 

[Mr X]

18 minutes ago, Badger said:

Wonder if Tonda will look to bring in any coaches to support him, possibly from previous clubs he’s worked at. Or if he’ll be allowed to. 
 

The roles may already be permanently filled from his U21 colleagues, but not sure if others have been put in place to assist Lallana. 

Not sure what lallana adds think it was heart over head there! 

[goodymatt]

11 minutes ago, West end Saints said:

Came in when we had 0 confidence and struggling.

Performing, factually (points /GD) as one of worst teams in the league.

Has been manager for 6 games.

For those 6 games we have been the best team in the championship - literally top of the 6 game current form table.

We have gone from a point below skates, 10 points below Bristol in 5th, 13 points below Middlesbrough in 2nd 

To

To 10 points clear of skates, to 2 points below Bristol to 9 points Middlesbrough.

I would say unlikely any manager would have done better.

 

Can’t really argue with those stats. We’ve also gone 2-0 up in all but 1 of his 6 games.

Arma and Azaz getting 8 goal contributions each, both looked very ineffective under Still. He’s got all the attacking players firing, scoring and working their arses off. Impressive. Let’s hope it’s sustainable and we can enjoy this season.

[E_H_Saints]

1 hour ago, goodymatt said:

Can’t really argue with those stats. We’ve also gone 2-0 up in all but 1 of his 6 games.

Arma and Azaz getting 8 goal contributions each, both looked very ineffective under Still. He’s got all the attacking players firing, scoring and working their arses off. Impressive. Let’s hope it’s sustainable and we can enjoy this season.

He must have a chance at manager of the month for November which would be great as he wasn't the manager technically.  Azaz must have a shout at player of the month.  

[Saint86]

I think tactically there is an issue with the late game deep defence - we simply sit there and do absolutely zero to prevent the crosses - and its an issue, becuase we also can't then defend them when they arrive in the box.

He needs to work something out. When we're attacking its fine - the other teams can't live with us. But when we let them come on to us we are just set up quite poorly and no one seems inclined to stop the crosses, or to know who should be rushing out to pick up free players suddenly getting the ball.

[Badger]

4 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

I think tactically there is an issue with the late game deep defence - we simply sit there and do absolutely zero to prevent the crosses - and its an issue, becuase we also can't then defend them when they arrive in the box.

He needs to work something out. When we're attacking its fine - the other teams can't live with us. But when we let them come on to us we are just set up quite poorly and no one seems inclined to stop the crosses, or to know who should be rushing out to pick up free players suddenly getting the ball.

Agree with you totally we just allow the opponents to take the initiative and come on to us. The MF seem to retreat and we have taken off the main attacking outlets (although we did still create a couple of breakaway chances to put the game to bed).

Credit to the defence though there was no shortage of blocks going in and throwing bodies in front of shots. May not seem a lot, but much improved over the last couple of years. 

[chiknsmack]

In addition to sitting back and inviting pressure late we're also back to the old habit of having no-one on the edge of the box, both from corners and in general. Downes and Romeu were both dropping into the backline and leaving Zone 14 empty. For their goal Gray cut inside and Downes wasn't there to close him down. Had he chosen not to shoot he had two unmarked players he could've passed to.

It could be intentional (three at the back isn't thought to be enough defenders when the opponents are chasing the game so Manning has to play narrower and make it a compact back four - which would explain why he isn't being dropped for failing to close down crosses - and Downes has to drop back as an extra defender). But it's not working.

We'd be better off either trusting the three CBs to be good enough and taking pressure off them by closing down crosses and midfield, or changing formation to four or five at the back with at least one proper fullback instead of Fellows and/or Manning. Fellows off (or Scienza off and Fellows pushed up the pitch as an outlet) for Romeu, Manning to LB, a CB to RB, 4-3-3.

[pimpin4rizeal]

On 06/12/2025 at 20:23, Dusic said:

In what way is it rewarding stupidity to have taken time to assess how someone does in a role you might give them, and then when they have clearly shown they are highly capable, giving them that role?

Rather than rewarding stupidity its actually rewarding recruiting strong people into the club in the first place and then rewarding not making a knee jerk decision, either to give him the role without seeing how he handled it or to just get in <insert generic manager who has been in the championship lots of times before> because thats what some fans thought they should do.

 

On 06/12/2025 at 23:55, Lighthouse said:

None of that makes any sense. We sacked Still, Tonda was going to be in charge for the first two games at least. We won them both, no obviously superior candidate was immediately forthcoming so we gave him the next three. He ended up winning four out of five, including a couple of thumpings of reasonably decent teams, so we gave him the job.

None of that is stupid, it all seems fair enough to me. We could have gone out and signed someone with 'experience' of the Championship, with different players at different clubs at some point, instead we went with the guy who has experience of winning games with Southampton, right now.

Let’s come back to this at the end of the season. If you can do that without getting butthurt if it doesn’t go to plan I’m happy to be proven wrong .

at the end of the day we have two seasons to get out of this league so for this ekhart move to be a good idea he needs to achieve promotion in that time .

Also  let’s not forget  Russell Martin wasn’t too bad in the championship either with a better squad then  the rest of the league.doesn’t mean he’s a great manager though .. scienza is playing like bale atm and is the biggest factor in our form whatever happened under will still I have no idea but feels like the quality of our attack is what’s getting results