Good luck, Les. Gentleman of the first order.
FORMER England coach Les Reed has been appointed head of Saints’ new Football Development and Support Centre.
The club this morning announced the new structure, which will oversee four main areas – the academy, scouting, sports medicine and equipment procurement.
Reed, who was assistant coach during Kevin Keegan’s spell as England boss, will be in charge of the set-up and begins work on May 1.
The centre will be based at Saints’ Staplewood training ground.
Saints chairman Nicola Cortese said: "From the outset we have made clear that our plan is to get into the Premier League and to compete effectively in that division.
“To achieve this we need to have created a strong foundation for the long term and we are now turning our words into actions.
"Les shares the same ambition. He brings great experience and, most importantly, a wide network of contacts that is key in such a project.
"The work is already underway to get the right people on board for the new centre structure to be successful and we are making the necessary investment to get this done over the immediate period ahead."
Reed, who was caretaker manager at Charlton before Alan Pardew took over as manager at The Valley in 2006, said he was thrilled to be joining Saints.
"I'm delighted that Nicola has offered me the opportunity to be able to join the staff at Southampton,” he said.
“I'm very excited about the potential and what is possible to achieve here.
“I believe that there are opportunities to develop some ground breaking initiatives and be at the cutting edge of the industry.
"I think I bring the experience in my past jobs of seeing what is going on in the rest of the world, not just in Europe, and to evaluate best practice.
“This post gives me the opportunity to bring all this experience to the fore.
"Nicola's enthusiasm, passion and drive for this project is infectious.
“You can't help but realise that this isn't pie in the sky stuff; he has a real vision for the club and it is achievable.
“No one is here for the short term, this is a long term project that has real potential of being achieved.
"I see this as a real opportunity for Southampton Football Club to become the club that everyone wants to visit to discover how we are so successful.
“This is a real opportunity to be a leader in this field."
Academy manager Matt Crocker welcomed the move.
"It will be a massive benefit to have Les' expertise” he said.
“We are all excited and very much looking forward to the future of the academy and the club
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Comments
Talal El Karkouri scores a last minute winner vs Blackburn?
well based on his results as our caretaker, i'm surprised he wasn't offered the job full time .....................
I hate southampton I really do and with smary big nose taking all the pludits really gets my goat, sorry people but it ain't right.
Sums up perfectly what I think about them too. Something in this -10 point penalty -start again as before mentality that sits uneasy. I'm sure RM could have done the same thing with us but has tried to pull us out of the dung the correct way.
If we were guaranteed to come out of admin as well as Southampton have smelling of roses, with possibly the strongest squad in the division then i'd take admin next season without question if our debts became too much.
However look at Palace, what if admin takes us the other way and no one wants to buy us?
i read it as if nicola was a female until uncle les said "he has a real vision for the club" lol