Why Did This Club Appoint a Manager Only Famous for a Football Manager Save?

Why Did This Club Appoint a Manager Only Famous for a Football Manager Save?

With Football Manager 2026 set to be released any second now, the first instalment of the game in two years, it would be a cardinal sin as a sports journalist to miss the opportunity to discuss current Southampton manager Will Still.

A Belgian national with English descent, Still first rose to prominence while in charge of Stade Reims, a role he held from October 2022 until May of last year. And while his results certainly garnered plenty of headlines, it was in fact his extracurricular activities that caught the eye of the media and footballing world most effectively.

What do you think Will Still is thinking? 🧐 pic.twitter.com/lpjWcHnIR0

— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) October 21, 2025

His advanced knowledge of the Football Manager video game, as well as his position as assistant coach at the club in late 2022, meant that the Reims hierarchy saw him as an outside candidate for the job, and when they eventually took the leap, they were not disappointed.

However, since departing the French top flight, it has been anything but smooth sailing for the Belgian, and unlike in the video game he so dearly loves, there is no save and restart option (true Football Manager fans know it as “scum saving”).

In the midst of a squall on the south coast of the UK, Football Park takes a closer look at the appointment of Will Still, and whether Southampton had methods behind the madness, or simply catered to their own fanbase and, more widely, the entire football-following demographic of the UK.

No Chill Will Still

After a brief spell in his home country in charge of Beerschot, which saw him take over for the second half of the 2020/21 season and lead the outfit to top-flight safety, clubs across the top five leagues grew interested in the then 28-year-old – it didn’t take long for Reims to snap him up and plant him in the assistant manager role in order for him to learn from Oscar Garcia.

However, it soon became clear that Garcia was not the man to lead Reims forward, and after a short search, the higher-ups at the club figured they had an adequate replacement already at the club in Still. Thrown in at the deep end, little was expected of him, but what he did next would reverberate around Europe, even more so thanks to the somewhat illegal manner of his appointment.

Because you see, despite leading a side in the French top flight, Still had no official coaching qualifications, meaning that it was technically illegal for him to manage above a certain tier, and certainly not the top flight. As a result, for every game he managed without his Continental A licence, Reims would be forced to pay a £22,000 fine, a figure which quickly adds up over multiple games.

Will Still has led Reims to an 19-game unbeaten run in all competitions. At 30 years old, he’s the youngest manager in Europe’s top five leagues 👶

Reims pay a £22,000 fine each time Still manages because he doesn’t have his UEFA Pro license… 🤯 pic.twitter.com/0bu9Ma6Ign

— No Context Saints (@NoContextSoton) October 10, 2025

However, thanks to his intimate knowledge of the Football Manager game, and having been the assistant coach at the club for four months beforehand, Reims were happy to take the leap, and he quickly turned the club on its head, taking the club on a 19-game unbeaten streak in the league that featured wins over Lille and Rennes, as well as two draws against Ligue 1 juggernauts PSG.

His performance at Reims persuaded RC Lens to move in for him - having qualified for the Champions League two years previously, it appeared that Still’s opportunity to enter the big time had arrived, and the offer would have only been more attractive due to the fact it meant he would stay in a league he was already familiar with.

However, he could only guide them to an eighth-place finish, missing out on European football entirely, and while he was not sacked from his role in May of this year, the Lens board would certainly not have fought to keep hold of him as he entered talks to take charge at Southampton.

With his contract at the Saints signed and sealed later the same month, Still took his first step into EFL management, a hostile, unpredictable, ultra-competitive setting where anything can, and often does, happen.

And while there was plenty of hype around the Saints hiring a promising young manager, Still has found out pretty quickly that in the second tier of English football, it is sink or swim as soon as you get in the water.

From Saints to Sinners

Arriving at a Southampton side fresh from a humiliating relegation, accumulating just 12 points across the 38-game top-flight campaign, the early season expectation was that Still would lead the South Coast outfit back to the Premier League, completing the yo-yo club phase in the process.

Though they are comfortably one of the Premier League’s worst ever single-season performers, their squad is still stacked with bags of talent: Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Mads Roerslev, Finn Azaz and Joe Aribo have all mustered international caps, while Adam Armstrong, Ryan Manning and Shea Charles all have strong Championship pedigrees.

That pass from Shea Charles and that finish from Adam Armstrong… 👌

(Credit - @SkyFootball) #SaintsFC #EFL pic.twitter.com/08YzvVaz36

— 72cast (@weare72cast) October 21, 2025

However, from the off, it has been an uphill battle for Still. His system works, and Southampton typically have the better of each and every game, but their disastrous conversion rate and frequent defensive lapses have seen them repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot.

Following Tuesday night's 3-1 defeat to Bristol City, the Saints are now winless in three, and have notched just two league victories from 10 games played so far this season, a catastrophic return for a side expected to be comfortably in the promotion hunt.

An even more remarkable stat speaks for itself - since the start of last season, Southampton have won just FOUR out of the 47 league games the outfit have played since August last year. A damning statistics, underlining just how far they have fallen.

Since winning the Championship play-off final in May 2024, Southampton have played 47 league matches.

They have won four.

𝙎𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 rang out from the away end at Ashton Gate as Will Still's side slumped to a 3-1 defeat by Bristol City. pic.twitter.com/793zHYRgqY

— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) October 21, 2025

When I say they have a disastrous conversion rate, I am not overstating anything. Still’s team has found the net on 12 occasions this season, which, as a lone number, puts them bang in the middle of the Championship pack.

However, here is the vital context: The Saints have missed the third most big chances (19) in the league, the third most shots on target per game (5), and the second-highest expected goals figure (20.8), with only league leaders Coventry pipping them to the post in all three metrics.

Based on those numbers alone, combined with conceding three more goals than the XG they have faced, Southampton should, theoretically speaking, sit second in the Championship, not 17th, where they currently languish.

Based on the quality of scoring chances created and conceded in the Championship this season, Southampton are currently expected to be 2nd, rather than 17th... 😶

Coaching problem? Striker problem? Or both? #saintsfc pic.twitter.com/Gu2l5ajI8p

— SaintsExtra (@SaintsExtra) October 22, 2025

And so the question must be asked - is this all Still’s doing? Is his management strategy suitable for Football Manager 2026 and nothing else? Or is he a perfectly capable coach simply cursed with the wrong players?

The Crux of the Issue

Clearly, converting chances into goals is a critical issue at St. Mary’s - but it is much harder to identify why finishing is such a problem. Adam Armstrong certainly knows how to find the net; he netted 24 league goals as Southampton won promotion via the play-offs in 2024.

Cameron Archer has also proven himself to be a nuisance, and despite his lack of a big goalscoring season so far in his career, the quality of some of his finishes during his stint in the Premier League is a reminder of what a clinical marksman he can be.

💻🗣️ Will Still: "When you’re working at clubs in Belgium that have no budget, everyone looks at Football manager. Transfermarkt, everyone looks at it. Everyone looks at FIFA ratings. I’d be stupid not to at least look at it because it’s there."

"But it didn’t form my… pic.twitter.com/zO2K5IWK8e

— EuroFoot (@eurofootcom) August 10, 2025

The list of more than capable Saints forwards could go on - Ross Stewart, Damion Downs and Kuryu Matsuki all provide capable backup, while wingers Tom Fellows, Samuel Edozie, Leo Scienza and Welington have all shone, providing chance after chance after chance.

Left wing back Manning has proven himself particularly useful in the creative department, with his 21 opportunities created being the fourth most of any individual in the Championship. The problem? None of them seem to find the back of the net. Armstrong and Archer have missed three and four big chances, respectively, while Downs, Caspar Jander and Stewart have all wasted multiple similar opportunities.

Undoubtedly, Still would have implemented some much-needed finishing sessions during training, but so far, they haven’t seemed to have done the trick.

Is the poor conversion rate a managerial issue? I don’t really see how it can be - after all, it is Still’s system that is crafting these opportunities in the first place, a system that requires every player involved to be in the right place at the right time, picking the right pass with the right weight, eventually crafting a shooting opportunity.

However, once the opportunity to shoot arrives, it is out of the Belgian’s hands; he can only hope and pray. In their ten league games so far this season, more often than not, his prayers have not been answered, and now the 32-year-old finds himself in some hot water down by the coast.

His team, expected to be pushing for automatic promotion at the start of the campaign, are a million miles from where they are so supposed to be, and with Will Still being the face of the club, he is naturally taking the majority of the heat, with much of his own fanbase calling for the board to sack him.

Teams completely given up.

No togetherness or fight.

Still cannot inspire the players or get them to play well for more than about 30 minutes.

GET HIM OUT #StillOut #SaintsFc

— Ben (@BensBanter) October 21, 2025

This is not simply a scenario where you can change to a 4-2-3-1 and see an immediate improvement in results (again, Football Manager fans know what I'm talking about), and either way, he wouldn’t be able to resort to this, as it is the system he has been using for much of the season anyway.

For the first time in his managerial career, Still has found himself holding the wrong end of the stick. Still so young and brimming with potential, it will be fascinating to see how he deals with this adversity.

I mentioned earlier that the Championship is very much a sink-or-swim division, and Still is quickly finding out that in order to swim, you need to take a leap.