No one can comprehend how far Will Still is able to go with this coaching career of his. He raised a lot of eyebrows with just how well he did in the French top division. Southampton have a well-rated Ligue 1 manager on their hands through this appointment. The EFL Championship is now Still’s next challenge. We have weird and wonderful tactics when it comes to this league. What can the 32-year old coach bring to the table, to try and get the Saints backup to the Premier League?
Will Still’s latest project was his adventure in the North of France with RC Lens, sealing an eighth place finish in Ligue 1, seeing the team beat Lyon 2-1 and getting four past Monaco in the final game of the season. Big wins like these two, have all been achieved through the art of patience within this protective shape that Still has incorporated. It may not be the same effect that a team like the Saint’s should adopt this season, with fans hoping they’ll be a dominant side with a shape that portrays just that too.
But when encountering tough challenges against the likes of Ipswich who’ll be wanting to instantly return back to the top flight like the Saints, and even the likes of Birmingham who could easily overachieve – that defensive structure might prove to be the most effective way to gain three hard-earned points.
That 2-1 Win Against Olympique Lyonnais…
Ever since that name: Will Still, has scratched the surface in French football, we’ve seen him silence the noise against the bigger sides in Ligue 1. As mentioned, he was able to grab all three points off them by using a protective shape, a formation that consisted of being a 5-4-1 and when going forward we’d see it shift to a 4-1-2-3 and really climb up the field with high energy. It was his team hitting the opposition on the counter and we witnessed this in their 2-1 win against Lyon towards the end of the season.
Without a doubt, they surprised us that day. No one even saw that win coming in-game either, considering Lyon had 68% of the possession. They were dominant, put it that way! But considering they had a lot of the ball, they still were only able to have up to four shots on target that day, out of the 18 shots they had in total. Lens’ back five really frustrated the home side, leaving them no space at times to accurately test Mathew Ryan in goal that day.
Let’s remember, this Lyon side that Will Still was able to beat, featured the new Manchester City signing – Rayan Cherki. What did the trick was just how much Will Still got his team to overload the box with eight or nine players, leaving no space for Cherki or for any other Lyon player for that matter!
A more well-protected Southampton team for 2026?
If we translate this into Southampton’s current team, there’s reasons as to why it can be as successful as it was for RC Lens. When you look at the current squad, it feels it’s more defensive than offensive, with eight centre halves in the team at this moment in time. The names that’ll be fighting for the badge in the Championship for the Saints, feels overqualified in this league, just like it was last time round.
Names like: Jan Bednarek, the experienced Jack Stephens and the ex-Man City defender who made his England debut last year – Taylor Harwood-Bellis. That’s just to name a few, but given the five at the back is the go to for the new manager, it seems a winning choice with just how defensively acquired the team already is. It’s essential for the defenders to decrease that freedom of space in the box, supported with a line of four in front of them too, which’ll be the formula that wins them back the ball, being the likely approach if we see Still repeat things from his days at Lens.
When it comes to actually elevating the ball up the field, we see it all start with these impactful runs from the box. The midfielders are to thank for that – the ones who travel up the field. In order to actually get that proper flavouring of counter-attacking football from Southampton – will be down to players like Joe Aribo and Will Smallbone who could be playing quite deep when coming up against high-clashing competitive teams like Ipswich or Sheffield United.
When they find themselves re-gaining the possession back from them tougher opposition sides, then the midfielders will pass it to the high-up wingers to be the direction of travel into the final third – the likes of the precious Tyler Dibling on the right, or the optimistic Samuel Edozie on the left for the clear and obvious options. These are also two players who can hold up the play, allowing time for these makeshift wing-backs to make overlapping runs, which we saw come from Will’s side Lens only two months ago and the team really utilised from that too.
A player Southampton signed in January who can support as a LWB in a Will Still side is Wellington. When in a back five line, it’s crucial for the Brazilian to transition to a wing-back and look to run up the field after the Saints commit their counter-attack. Samuel Edozie who really impressed during his loan-spell at Anderlecht, will be key to attribute important dribbles, to get past opposition players, which will allow him to make the run into the box, or find the pass to the overlapping player that could be Wellington, depending on the starting XI.
Everything Edozie can do to gift time to Wellington for him to come from a deep to a higher position on the pitch, could be vital for the Saints to complete the attack. Why Wellington? Well, the 24-year old was used in a similar role at his previous club São Paulo, so it makes complete sense why Will Still would partner up the two left-footed players. He picked up several assists for the Brazilian side too, so I feel we could particularly see him have the same repeated output for Southampton, next season.
It’s then time for a goalscorer to come into the picture, which could be them brilliant two wingers as we’ve mentioned. But, the target man in the box doesn’t have to just be Cameron Archer or Adam Armstrong, it can be these shadow strikers that we saw feature in his Lens side last season.
Lens midfielder Neil El Aynaoui – was joint highest goalscorer in the team last season with centre-forward Elye Wahi, who both scored eight goals. Will Still could implement Mateus Fernandes to have the same role, to make decisive runs through the defence for players like Will Smallbone in the midfield with him or even Cameron Archer to make one-twos and assist the Portuguese midfielder through his use as a shadow striker.
For the 25/26 season then, perhaps don’t expect to see “Armstrong” or “Archer” as the typical names on the score sheet. Instead, we could see “Aribo”, “Fernandes” or even “Smallbone” a whole lot more, considering there were more midfielders than forwards featuring in Lens’ top five goal scorers this season. Let’s not forget the context though – this Lens side has had a harder challenge to face this season in Ligue 1. It’ll surely be an easier challenge for Will Still’s Southampton when battling out in the Championship?
To gain promotion, you need to be dominant…
Of course, Southampton fans want a reaction from their team to hit-back with promotion to get back to the big time. In order for that to be possible, it’s about being dominant in this league – high-intensity, being a nuisance through having numbers up the field and not pushing players back, are all things that the team from the South should be doing. Do we exactly get that in the right fashion from Will Still though?
I think if we didn’t get it, it wouldn’t have really placed his name on the map, as we saw high-energy and attacking quality from his Reims side, between 2022-2024. There’s still a lot of similarities back then, from how he did things with Lens a year later. The familiarity of the use of wing-backs, midfielders running up the field to join the box as shadow strikers (despite playing with two forwards at times), and just that same rush from one part of the pitch to the other. He inserts rapidness into his team.
At the same time though, he almost did things the opposite way round as he did with Lens, overloading players in the opposition box rather than his own box. It makes for fascinating viewing and Saints fans should be excited to have him as their new manager.
What could and really should be Will Still’s ideal formation that he picks out for the Saints, should be the two shapes that he used at Reims: The 4-2-3-1 that shifted to a 3-4-2-1. That’s not to say that we won’t still see his back five line come into the light during the game or at the start of it. Overall, it’s down to the context that the game has to offer…
We know how big of a selection the manager has when it comes to choosing his starting defence, but it’s the other areas on the field that we could debate about. A lot of the time, it’s just the one striker that Still depends on. A player who he got the best out of, was the ex-Middlesbrough and current Monaco player – Folarin Balogun, who contributed 21 goals in 37 games for Still in the 22/23 campaign at Reims, achieving to be the fifth highest goalscorer in Ligue 1 that season. The forward was freakishly powerful, built through the success through the middle, his high-line that he would obtain (similar to how Archer plays) and the crosses that would be supplied from the wings, only meant he scored goals for fun that season.
Giving it the Southampton tweak to his Reims model – we can focus more on the attack this time round, potentially seeing Archer as the sole striker, with Adam Armstrong right behind him as a back-up. Could Will Still be able to really convert them two as a frightening duo in the Championship, which he had the same effect between Balogun and attacker Alexis Filps had in 2023…
It’s nothing different as mentioned with what’s already been said with how powerful his shape was at RC Lens, but this time it’s more attractive attacking play, the inclusion from long through balls to the sole striker, the swift switches that no doubt we’ll get from what’s already some duo on the wings that is: Tyler Dibling and Samuel Edozie. Everything is in place for Will Still to take advantage against the 23 other sides in the Championship next season…
To comprehend with the opposition’s attacking response, we normally see Still implement a holding midfielder in that 4-2-3-1 to hold back – allowing the left wing-back or right wing-back to join with the rush in the attack, but of course the expected outcome is for them to track back when needed. A holding midfielder like the reliant Flynn Downes or the promising Shea Charles will fill this role brilliantly for the new manager. It’s then about a midfielder beside the holding role to move up the field to complement the attacking rush, ideally like Smallbone or Fernandes.
With just how much Will Still puts on the line through his injection of that large tendency in his team – being able to hold-up a strong back five line of defence over the 90 minutes, could’ve really been the selling point with why the club acquired him in the first place. Were they looking at the long-term picture, visioning Still as the manager that’ll get them up and take part in the Premier League?
It wouldn’t be a surprise given just how much of a like for like structure that both Russell Martin and Still share, when conquering a country’s first division. With the new manager though, it just seems it’ll be counter attacking football like the last time they were in the Premier League, but this time with a whole faster tempo compared to Martin’s way of doing things. They’ll certainly be less passing it around the back and more allowing the only possession to be held through winning it back in the defensive line and looking to counter attack through midfielders travelling with the ball from the box, and targeting a pass out to the forwards.
It’s a style of play that’s proven to be effective in Ligue 1. But can it deliver the same results in the Premier League? That’s purely speculative. First and foremost, the priority is getting out of the Championship to begin with.
