Will Still

[SW5 SAINT]

Will Still didn’t instil much confidence with his interview technique…

 

[Osvaldorama]

Absolutely unforgivable how bad he made us. 
 

Has to go down as one of our worst managers of all time.
And that’s quite the accolade considering the absolute muppets we’ve employed. 

[Saint NL]

How shit was this guy? An absolute fraud. 

[Mr Saints]

Should never work in football again based on what he produced here. Dog shit.

[Disco Stu]

Maybe he can work as his brother's assistant at Watford?

[whelk]

We have some fucking weird fans 

[Colinjb]

Still not sure exactly what that was. He did objectively good work elsewhere before failing here. 

Still; we are fine now.

[Mattio]

8 minutes ago, Colinjb said:

Still not sure exactly what that was. He did objectively good work elsewhere before failing here. 

Still; we are fine now.

I feel like he’d have done better than Martin last season, he seems like he gets a lot from teams expected to fail. Maybe he’s not honed his skills in a team in the opposite position. 

[Disco Stu]

21 hours ago, whelk said:

We have some fucking weird fans 

You'll find there's tons of weirdos on online forums. I guess it's inevitable with lots of terminally online types with tens of thousands of posts.

Edited Sunday at 19:37 by Disco Stu

[Badger]

The early posts exclaiming optimism over the appointment now make interesting reading. Some people clearly taken in by one programme with Carragher and some  media hype. 

[Lighthouse]

41 minutes ago, Badger said:

The early posts exclaiming optimism over the appointment now make interesting reading. Some people clearly taken in by one programme with Carragher and some  media hype. 

No, some people were cautiously optimistic based on a fairly respectable recent record, at a decent level in Europe.

[Turkish]

50 minutes ago, Badger said:

The early posts exclaiming optimism over the appointment now make interesting reading. Some people clearly taken in by one programme with Carragher and some  media hype. 

I was optimistic. He had a very good reputation hailed as one of Europes best young coaches. saw a few podcasts, interviews and analysis of him and he came across really well. I was pleased when he joined us. As it turned out he was awful, I still can’t believe he was as bad as he was. Even Nathan Jones and Juric had some mitigation factors. Still no idea what was going on there.

[Dman]

11 hours ago, Turkish said:

I was optimistic. He had a very good reputation hailed as one of Europes best young coaches. saw a few podcasts, interviews and analysis of him and he came across really well. I was pleased when he joined us. As it turned out he was awful, I still can’t believe he was as bad as he was. Even Nathan Jones and Juric had some mitigation factors. Still no idea what was going on there.

Comfortably, pound for pound given resources and expectations, the worst manager we have ever had - at least in my living memory anyway. 

[Dman]

I do wonder how Still would have done if we'd started the season with Larin and Stewart as our 2 options up top. I do susepect it would have been better. 

He was given a duff hand with Downes and he simply couldn't adapt to having Armstrong as a lone number 9. 

[Turkish]

52 minutes ago, Dman said:

Comfortably, pound for pound given resources and expectations, the worst manager we have ever had - at least in my living memory anyway. 

Quite probably. I go back to that Blackburn game. We had good seats right in the middle at the back, you could see it all unraveling before your eyes. No one knew where to be or that to do, 4 centre backs and 6 defenders on the pitch, no shape, no plan it was an absolute shambles. Defend a lead throw a defender on, chasing a game throw another striker on seemed to be his only plan. You couldn't get much further away from the eloquent, thoughtful, intelligent guy he came across before he joined us.

[hypochondriac]

38 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Quite probably. I go back to that Blackburn game. We had good seats right in the middle at the back, you could see it all unraveling before your eyes. No one knew where to be or that to do, 4 centre backs and 6 defenders on the pitch, no shape, no plan it was an absolute shambles. Defend a lead throw a defender on, chasing a game throw another striker on seemed to be his only plan. You couldn't get much further away from the eloquent, thoughtful, intelligent guy he came across before he joined us.

I just found it so odd that he played all preseason with one formation that he'd previously said he favoured then immediately changed and stuck with another formation once the competitive games started. I'd love to know off the record why he did that. Almost certainly Jack Stephens was the unnamed captain from unnamed club that went to the owners to say how poor he was.

[Patrick Bateman]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

Quite probably. I go back to that Blackburn game. We had good seats right in the middle at the back, you could see it all unraveling before your eyes. No one knew where to be or that to do, 4 centre backs and 6 defenders on the pitch, no shape, no plan it was an absolute shambles. Defend a lead throw a defender on, chasing a game throw another striker on seemed to be his only plan. You couldn't get much further away from the eloquent, thoughtful, intelligent guy he came across before he joined us.

Makes you wonder if he wanted out and regretted the role for some reason, but wanted a pay off to get out ... surely the only explanation for the bizarre nature of the teams selections and "tactics".

[wild-saint]

16 hours ago, Turkish said:

I was optimistic. He had a very good reputation hailed as one of Europes best young coaches. saw a few podcasts, interviews and analysis of him and he came across really well. I was pleased when he joined us. As it turned out he was awful, I still can’t believe he was as bad as he was. Even Nathan Jones and Juric had some mitigation factors. Still no idea what was going on there.

Agree with this and is pretty much my position.  I do wonder how it may have turned out if he had demanded a decent centre forward, a right back and a keeper so he could have played a 4 at the back system. I suspect if we hadnt had bree peretz and Larin join in January we woudnt be anywhere near 6th. Small margins change outcomes and with it confidence improves. 

 

[RedArmy]

I wonder if that dinlo on here that said Will Still would manage in the premier league before Saints get back there still holds that opinion 

[Charlie Wayman]

On 22/03/2026 at 00:50, Disco Stu said:

You'll find there's tons of weirdos on online forums. I guess it's inevitable with lots of terminally online types with tens of thousands of posts.

Who do you have in mind? Name them! 

[saintwbu]

3 hours ago, wild-saint said:

Agree with this and is pretty much my position.  I do wonder how it may have turned out if he had demanded a decent centre forward, a right back and a keeper so he could have played a 4 at the back system. I suspect if we hadnt had bree peretz and Larin join in January we woudnt be anywhere near 6th. Small margins change outcomes and with it confidence improves. 

 

Tonda’s first 5 games as a professional manager were all like watching a different sport compared to Will Still’s efforts. I can’t remember a single game where we genuinely played well for a whole game. He spoke all August about waiting for wingers to arrive before changing to a back 4, then played it for two games and went back to a 5. I can’t remember which home game it was that he basically left us with one midfielder in order to bring on more attackers, and then brought on Aribo to switch back about 5 minutes later - bizarre stuff.

[Disco Stu]

26 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Who do you have in mind? Name them! 

They know who they are 😂

[Mboto Gorge]

9 hours ago, Turkish said:

Quite probably. I go back to that Blackburn game. We had good seats right in the middle at the back, you could see it all unraveling before your eyes. No one knew where to be or that to do, 4 centre backs and 6 defenders on the pitch, no shape, no plan it was an absolute shambles. Defend a lead throw a defender on, chasing a game throw another striker on seemed to be his only plan. You couldn't get much further away from the eloquent, thoughtful, intelligent guy he came across before he joined us.

This was the game when I finally 100% turned, and knew he had to go. The same with many others I think too. 

[Stripey McStripe Shirt]

1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

They know who they are 😂

Will Still?

[Roo1976]

On 21/03/2026 at 15:56, Saint NL said:

How shit was this guy? An absolute fraud. 

Well he blindsided our boardroom incompetents.

[The Kraken]

6 hours ago, wild-saint said:

Agree with this and is pretty much my position.  I do wonder how it may have turned out if he had demanded a decent centre forward, a right back and a keeper so he could have played a 4 at the back system. I suspect if we hadnt had bree peretz and Larin join in January we woudnt be anywhere near 6th. Small margins change outcomes and with it confidence improves. 

 

You would definitely have to say that Still wasn’t helped by Spors and the team behind him.

Tbf he had right backs, up to a point. James Bree didn’t go out on loan until 1st September, he played in pre season games but got a knock in the last one against Brighton and that was about it. By the end of the window we had signed Jelert and Roerslev (remember them? Nah me neither). So a failure of the recruitment team in that those two haven’t looked up to it (injuries also a factor of course). I can’t remember off hand how bad Bree’s injury was in August, but it can’t have been too bad if Nate picked him up. So yeah, there’s mitigation around RB though I’d question why Bree left in the first place.

I have sympathy on the striker front. Downs was a complete failure of recruitment, and an expensive one. He also is, despite his physical size, not a striker who plays how we look to play now, he’s very much off the shoulder of the defender rather than a hold up man.  Also, Stewart was on the books and hardly made an appearance before “coming back” in October then promptly doing his hammy. We also had Arma and Tasmin at the time, neither of them cheap. An extra CF on top of all those, I can get why not. Recruitment failure to get Downs. How much input Still had, don’t know.

Also, not getting a keeper in the summer, I reckon recruitment failure. Maybe if Still had more gravitas he might have said “this lad is garbage, the fans who have seen him all know he’s garbage, he needs replacing”. But I think Spors was far more influential about that than Still at the time, and it wasn’t deemed a priority. 

Despite all that I think Still made some awful decisions and definitely we did not have any sort of ‘style’ under him, it was very much throw a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks. Very little actually did.

Eckert has definitely had the fortune of having better resources available to him. But he has also made a much better fist of looking like he knows what he’s doing, learning from his mistakes, and planning much better around the resources available. Still was hampered by his recruitment team but I feel he compounded that by picking a team out of a hat every game and sending players out who have commented since that the current manager makes it much easier to understand what he wants them to do.

Edited 14 hours ago by The Kraken

[Holmes_and_Watson]

2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

They know who they are 😂

I nearly replied at 1 in the morning, after several posts. But I've only got a singular ten thousand posts. So, I know you didn't mean me. 🙂

[trousers]

On 21/03/2026 at 21:37, whelk said:

We have some fucking weird fans 

 

On 22/03/2026 at 00:50, Disco Stu said:

You'll find there's tons of weirdos on online forums. I guess it's inevitable with lots of terminally online types with tens of thousands of posts.

 

3 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Who do you have in mind? Name them! 

 

3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

They know who they are 😂

 

[saintwbu]

7 hours ago, The Kraken said:

You would definitely have to say that Still wasn’t helped by Spors and the team behind him.

Tbf he had right backs, up to a point. James Bree didn’t go out on loan until 1st September, he played in pre season games but got a knock in the last one against Brighton and that was about it. By the end of the window we had signed Jelert and Roerslev (remember them? Nah me neither). So a failure of the recruitment team in that those two haven’t looked up to it (injuries also a factor of course). I can’t remember off hand how bad Bree’s injury was in August, but it can’t have been too bad if Nate picked him up. So yeah, there’s mitigation around RB though I’d question why Bree left in the first place.

I have sympathy on the striker front. Downs was a complete failure of recruitment, and an expensive one. He also is, despite his physical size, not a striker who plays how we look to play now, he’s very much off the shoulder of the defender rather than a hold up man.  Also, Stewart was on the books and hardly made an appearance before “coming back” in October then promptly doing his hammy. We also had Arma and Tasmin at the time, neither of them cheap. An extra CF on top of all those, I can get why not. Recruitment failure to get Downs. How much input Still had, don’t know.

Also, not getting a keeper in the summer, I reckon recruitment failure. Maybe if Still had more gravitas he might have said “this lad is garbage, the fans who have seen him all know he’s garbage, he needs replacing”. But I think Spors was far more influential about that than Still at the time, and it wasn’t deemed a priority. 

Despite all that I think Still made some awful decisions and definitely we did not have any sort of ‘style’ under him, it was very much throw a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks. Very little actually did.

Eckert has definitely had the fortune of having better resources available to him. But he has also made a much better fist of looking like he knows what he’s doing, learning from his mistakes, and planning much better around the resources available. Still was hampered by his recruitment team but I feel he compounded that by picking a team out of a hat every game and sending players out who have commented since that the current manager makes it much easier to understand what he wants them to do.

On Stewart, he’d just scored twice against Sheffield United but then did his hammy a few days later against Derby. He probably couldn’t handle two starts in 3 days. Tonda has had more game time out of him than anyone, but has managed him very carefully - perhaps Still/medical team overdid it, whilst Tonda/medical team are being much more careful now. 

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

11 hours ago, The Kraken said:

You would definitely have to say that Still wasn’t helped by Spors and the team behind him.

Tbf he had right backs, up to a point. James Bree didn’t go out on loan until 1st September, he played in pre season games but got a knock in the last one against Brighton and that was about it. By the end of the window we had signed Jelert and Roerslev (remember them? Nah me neither). So a failure of the recruitment team in that those two haven’t looked up to it (injuries also a factor of course). I can’t remember off hand how bad Bree’s injury was in August, but it can’t have been too bad if Nate picked him up. So yeah, there’s mitigation around RB though I’d question why Bree left in the first place.

I have sympathy on the striker front. Downs was a complete failure of recruitment, and an expensive one. He also is, despite his physical size, not a striker who plays how we look to play now, he’s very much off the shoulder of the defender rather than a hold up man.  Also, Stewart was on the books and hardly made an appearance before “coming back” in October then promptly doing his hammy. We also had Arma and Tasmin at the time, neither of them cheap. An extra CF on top of all those, I can get why not. Recruitment failure to get Downs. How much input Still had, don’t know.

Also, not getting a keeper in the summer, I reckon recruitment failure. Maybe if Still had more gravitas he might have said “this lad is garbage, the fans who have seen him all know he’s garbage, he needs replacing”. But I think Spors was far more influential about that than Still at the time, and it wasn’t deemed a priority. 

Despite all that I think Still made some awful decisions and definitely we did not have any sort of ‘style’ under him, it was very much throw a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks. Very little actually did.

Eckert has definitely had the fortune of having better resources available to him. But he has also made a much better fist of looking like he knows what he’s doing, learning from his mistakes, and planning much better around the resources available. Still was hampered by his recruitment team but I feel he compounded that by picking a team out of a hat every game and sending players out who have commented since that the current manager makes it much easier to understand what he wants them to do.

It was very telling, that after the 3-0 Leicester game (I think it was this game).

A couple of players effectively said this outright in the post match interviews.

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

Even the first game against Wrexham was a concern because he just threw on strikers at the end and got lucky but Turkish's comments about the Blackburn game are incisive because that also for me was the game when I realised he really wasn't very good.

That stated, Tonda was on a downward spiral until we changed the goalkeeper, got rid of the dwarf and the incompetent Downs up front and he stumbled on the four at the back formation. I think even Will Still would have got us up to mid table with those changes.

[trousers]

13 hours ago, The Kraken said:

Also, not getting a keeper in the summer, I reckon recruitment failure. Maybe if Still had more gravitas he might have said “this lad is garbage, the fans who have seen him all know he’s garbage, he needs replacing”.

Not "all" fans... Maybe he only asked the Saintsweb intelligentsia who knew he was "fine"...?

Edited 1 hour ago by trousers