When Jeremy Wilson the Chief Sports Writer of The Telegraph comments on Saints then he is usually doing so with an insider knowledge.
When Saints want to use the media to get a point across then more often than not they turn to Jeremy Wilson of the Telegraph, apart from being one of the most respected journalists in the national media, Wilson was also for a number of years a sports reporter for the Daily Echo and retains close connections to Saints.
The Telegraph is this morning carrying a story about Saints and how they may decide to split the role of outgoing football director Les Reed and are likely to consider an approach for former recruitment chief Paul Mitchell as part of their overhaul of the club’s off-field operations.
The article goes on to say that the Club is holding internal reviews about its structures around Hughes who at present the club still seem to have faith in.
Reed's role encompassed many areas including player recruitment, the development of Staplewood & the academy and also appointing a manager and the thought is that perhaps he had too much on his plate and that perhaps two men on the job might be better than one.
Wilson reports that Saints are finalising their future model and will then start approaching possible candidates with a view to having everything in place before the January transfer window opens.
But there is one interesting name that Wilson mentions in his article as one that Saints could be approaching and that is former Director of recruitment and scouting Paul Mitchell.
Mitchell was very successful in his first spell at the club after joining from MK Dons in January 2012 and can be credited for helping build the team that stayed up in it's first season back in the Premier League as well as the rebuild of the summer of 2014.
Wilson left soon after for Spurs and he raided two of his former clubs soon after signing Dele Alli from MK Dons and persuading Toby Alderweireld to renege on his arrangement to join Saints and go to White Hart Lane instead.
He is now at Red Bull Leipzig where he has been since February and with the German team currently in 3rd place in the Bundesliga and pushing for not only a Champions League place but an unlikely title, he might be difficult to prise away, but the fact that Wilson even mentions his name suggests that it may be something that could happen.
Ross Wilson, who is the club’s director of football operations and a board member, is expected to stay in his current role and will have a significant say in the future structure alongside chairman Ralph Krueger.
As mentioned the artcile states that Hughes is safe in the short term, it continues saying that whilst that is the thoughts at present that the club are not going to let the season drift, so it seems they have learned lessons from last year.
It quotes Krueger as saying.
"Results do not reflect the squad’s quality and there is no particular desire for an overhaul in January. We feel we have an extremely deep roster right now so at the moment we don’t plan to be active in January, We have the capability of being active but at the moment I would say we are not planning for activity in January.”
Although some might crassly dismiss this as more Americanism's by Krueger the sentiment is spot on, they feel that the squad has a month in which to prove itself, they feel that it is good enough, but if it doesn't pick up that we will not shirk in dealing with it, but on the surface they want to portray a club not pressing the panic button, it is likely though that they will already be identifying weak areas and where they can improve them, what they want to avoid though is alerting other clubs to firstly our targets and secondly to the selling club that we are desperate.
In the past couple of years Saints fans have criticised the club for a lack of communication, what some don't realise is that very few clubs actually make brash statements and prefer to keep their cards close to their chest, that is what Krueger is doing at the moment, using his media contacts to put out the right messages and quietly getting on with things.