When Will Still spoke for the first time as the new Southampton manager back in May, he was asked what Saints fans should expect from his team. His reply: ‘High energy.’
That’s a phrase that many a manager uses to get supporters on side, but it’s not always the case when their players step out onto the pitch.
But last Saturday, with Saints 1-0 down at home to Hollywood-backed Wrexham on the opening day of the Championship season, and the clock ticking toward the 90th minute, we saw the energy from those in red and white that Still had talked about when he first stepped through the door at Staplewood.
There was one man who embodied Still’s philosophy above all of his teammates, taking the game by the scruff of the neck and getting fans off their seats. That man was Ryan Manning.
The 27-year-old entered the action with just 18 minutes of normal time to go, like a man on a mission. As the clock struck 90, he buried a stunning free-kick into the top right-hand corner to send St. Mary’s into a frenzy.
As the ball nestled into the net, Manning turned around and ran straight back to the halfway line, hitting the Southampton badge on his chest while letting out a passionate roar. He wasn’t done yet.
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Will Still has a tough task on his hands at Southampton but has had a flying start in the job
Ryan Manning epitomised Still’s philosophy of ‘high energy’ football against Wrexham
Six minutes later, deep into stoppage time, he used his fresh legs to race down the left-hand side and slide the ball into the box that led to Jack Stephens’ winner.
These are not scenes Southampton fans have been all too used to seeing over the past year. The noise that spread around St. Mary’s when the final whistle blew felt like a release of all the trauma last season, in which their 12 points were the second-lowest Premier League points tally ever.
After such an energy-sapping campaign in the top-flight, many were wondering just how much damage it did to the players involved. But when speaking to Daily Mail Sport while wind battered Southampton’s training ground, Manning made it clear that Still has galvanised the group.
‘It’s not an easy thing to do to get the group excited and go again, but the new gaffer and the staff have done a really good job of that,’ says Manning, speaking on behalf of Midnite, Southampton’s new official training kit partner.
The Republic of Ireland international arrived back for pre-season a little later than his colleagues, due to commitments with his national side, but from the first minute he met Still, he was excited to work under the 32-year-old.
‘From the first meeting, he came across really well. The first few sessions were brilliant,’ Manning explains. ‘Everybody looks forward to coming in every day and training, they are really competitive; competition-based stuff, little games going on between us.
‘The information we are getting has been really clear, and it has been a really positive few weeks coming off the back of a really tough season last year.’
Manning and his colleagues may ‘love’ coming in for training, but when asked about the most memorable moments from sessions during his first six weeks under Still, he instantly chuckles and mentions running.
Manning tells Daily Mail Sport of the VO2 max test the squad had to do in pre-season
Players ‘love’ coming into training under Still due to the competitive nature he has instilled
To achieve the ‘high energy’ football the Belgian-born English coach wants, the players need to be fit, super fit, and Still has implemented a lot of running drills during pre-season to ensure his squad is in tip-top shape.
In late June, when the players returned from sipping on pina coladas by the pool, they were sent to Solent University to undergo a series of tests. One test sticks out in Manning’s mind above all the others, and not because he enjoyed it.
‘Pre-season is a tough time, a grafting time, but it’s rewarding at the same time,’ the defender continues. ‘You can see yourself going and getting fit again, getting back into the swing of things.
‘We did the VO2 max [test], the treadmill one, which is not fun at all. You can be the best runner in the world, and that’s still hard.
‘You are running until you can’t. You are literally on a harness holding you up for when you fall off the treadmill. It was a highlight for a bad reason; not fun.’
If you go to Southampton’s YouTube channel, you can see why Manning didn’t enjoy it.
Joshua Quarshie, who joined in the summer as the first signing of the Still era, was the fastest player in 2. Bundesliga last season, hitting a frightening top speed of 37.04 km/h, but even he looked like he had just run a marathon in blazing heat after completing the test.
Once the blue VO2 mask was stripped from his face, the 21-year-old bent down to catch his breath, while leaning on the treadmill to stop himself from falling over.
Manning (right) was talking to Daily Mail Sport from Southampton’s training ground following a parachute event hosted by sponsor Midnite
Still doesn’t make his team exclusively do running drills. As seen by some of the lovely moves they strung together against Wrexham, they do a lot of work on the grass.
‘It’s a lot of team stuff, we do a lot of it on the grass outside in training,’ Manning shares. ‘We have a meeting before training where they pass the information over, and then we go and implement it practically outside.
‘He is really clear in what he wants. The message is quite simple, and it’s there for us to take in all the meetings and take in the little one-to-one chats he will have with us about specific stuff that he needs to get across.’
The early signs are that the Southampton players have bought into Still’s philosophy of high-octane football, with pressing at its core.
But on Sunday lunchtime, they will face their first big test under the new boss – sorry, Wrexham fans – as they take on Ipswich Town, who dropped out of the Premier League with a whimper last term.
Still wants his team to be ‘at it’ when they take to the Portman Road turf for what could already be described as an automatic promotion six-pointer, so Manning and his team-mates will have to get those legs turning again if they are to appease their manager and get the three points.
Ryan Manning was speaking on behalf of UK bookmaker Midnite, Southampton’s new official training kit partner. Midnite surprised a group of loyal Saints fans with a £1,000 cash prize via parachute skydivers who interrupted a first-team training session on Thursday.
