Johannes Spors has been at St Mary's for almost a month, now he has spoken out on how he is aiming to bring not only a clear structure to Southampton Football club, but also communication.

Saints new Technical Director or in more common terms Director of Football is Johannes Spors and now he has been speaking to The Daily Echo about his new role and what can be expected from him,

"I'm ultimately responsible for every football-related decision

"I decided to not put too much focus on the technical part because we have Mark (Bitcon, Director of Football Operations) who is doing the medical team, the performance, the operational side.

"I think it is valuable if a different person does each part really, because I also have a little bit more to do than just the technical side here.

"(Recruitment, managers, staff) - that's ultimately my decision. But it is also about the way I come to these decisions and I think that is very important.

"I think the best way is that I take this responsibility 100 per cent, but I integrate all the internal stakeholders that we have as much as I can."

"That could be the manager. You ask about signing players, I mean, of course, I don't sign a player against the manager's wish.

"I never really understand that conflict because it just makes no sense, but I'm the expert for this and he's the expert for coaching the team.

"This includes the ownership. It includes scouting, it includes Phil as the CEO who signs off all the budget, but I'm here to take decisions and responsibility."

Spors' role as group technical director means "some extra work" within Sport Republic, but he is based with Saints and his office overlooks the training pitch at Staplewood.

"In the old multi-club (777 Group, a previous employer ), in the beginning, I was really in Genoa - but then I was out and responsible for everything equally,"

"I had to manage every club to the best version and we have been very successful with three promotions across the clubs in less than two years.

"But the big difference here is that I'm really in Southampton and I connect here with the other clubs, with a clear focus on Southampton."

The big question that most Saints fans will ask is about Ivan Juric and spors stopped short of giving the proverbial vote of confidence.

"There is not a 100 per cent precise answer. The manager at the moment is Ivan and will be Ivan.

"There is no other decision taken. I've known of Ivan for a very long time, I was always very impressed by the achievements that he had.

"He really stabilised difficult environments, especially defensively. He made sure that his clubs not only stabilised but also did grow again.

"It's not a secret and he is the first one to say this to you when you interview him, he is not satisfied that this development visible here yet.

"I'm here to observe this of course and I'm here to help him wherever I can. That's the situation where we are at the moment."

So it seems that Juric's job is on the line, results so far have made him the worst performing Southampton manager in the history of the club, so it seems that he will be given the chance to see if he can show he can take the club forward in the Championship, but you suspect that Spors and the club know that he is too far gone to do that and that the break clause in his contract will be activated come the summer.

Spors added: "It is important that I know the market of managers. No manager in the world would be against that at their club.

"It is important that ownership knows good sporting directors, this is nothing against me or Mark. I am following the global talent market in general.

"Bringing talent to this football club is absolutely crucial. On the pitch, off the pitch. When I say off the pitch, I don't mean just one head coach.

"I mean talent in the scouting, in the recruitment, in the analytics. We want people that want to grow. We need this energy of development.

"My former assistant the last years is now a sporting director in Kaiserslautern. This is what makes me really happy, this is what motivates me.

"If someone works closely with me, I can help him to make a next step and he is successful. Hopefully, he will be better than I am."

But some Saints fans have questioned whether Sport Republic actually want the club in the Premier League and whether promotion will actually be a priority, but Spors was direct in his answer to that.

"100 per cent, nothing else.

"I think we can do a lot in the window and we have to do a lot. We will be very, very active and I'm really looking forward to that

"If you just look at the pure size of our squad, when everybody stays and everybody comes back from loans, we have roughly 40 players.

"That means there will be a lot of decisions and we also have to rebuild the squad. I always think that squad planning is really a complicated picture.

"It's experience, it's youth, it's talent and the right characteristics for the style of play. I arrived here early for this window to really be prepared."

So that is a direct answer to a direct question, something that has been lacking at St Mary's since the arrival of Sport Republic.

Asked if Saints will have to sell before they can buy, Spors said:

"We will have to see a little. There are a couple of decisions that we have to wait for.

"We have to wait for how the market really reacts. There is this little window now because of the World Cup coming a little bit earlier.

"We can act, we can. Of course, as every football club in the world, we are also dependent on revenues. But in that sense, we are very comfortable.

"We can look positive into the window and then let's see how the market reacts, what can be done quickly, what takes longer, but we have time.

"At this stage of the season, you are preparing. You set the structure. You collect ideas. We will not sign new players this or next week.

"There is no window. Even if there was, it's about preparing first. Plannings for the next season are absolutely ongoing and going in a good direction."

A difficult answer for Spors, on one hand he knows he has to be positive, but on the other he also knows that certain players will want to leave and as in our previous relegation two years ago, it would be hard to stop them, that makes planning even harder.

Spors also spoke about his experience in player recruitment, but was at pains to confirm that Darren Mowbray was in charge of that department.

"I'm very experienced with this but I don't want to speak too much about the past," insisted Spors, asked how satisfied he is with current processes.

"It's very normal that in the beginning I make it very clear to the scouting and recruitment how I want this department to work.

"I know I also have to adapt to culture, but they have to adapt more to me, honestly. I am, at the moment, making sure that we go in the right direction.

"It is a very important department. I'm evaluating and we will also make a couple of decisions in that area,"

"I think we have to find the right balance and absolutely, yes, a couple of players have to stay because they are important.

"Other players have been here maybe a little bit too long or want to leave and this is okay. We can make different decisions.

"But we will not allow everybody to leave just because he wants to leave. We also need the right profiles for the Championship," he added.

"I have not worked in the Championship but I follow this competition very closely for a couple of years. We have employees here that know the competition.

"In my previous job, I got Genoa promoted from the second division to the first. I got Vasco da Gama promoted from the second division to the first.

"I got Red Star Paris promoted from the third division to the second. I was involved in the Red Bull promotion. A couple of things are very comparable.

"The more physical approach, the more dominance of long balls, the importance of set pieces. There are a couple of things that you can compare.

"I'm really looking forward to it. I think it would be wrong to say we keep everything or we change everything. It needs to be the right mix.

"That's exactly what I'm observing in these weeks to understand who is the right one to fight for the next goal that we have next season."

So a very open first interview to the media from Johannes Spors and a lot different from what we have been used to here for a long time.

But he has laid out what he is looking to do and that he will be putting the strategy in place to implement any changes and move the club forward.

Of course words are very easy and the proof of the pudding is in the eating, but with our situation we can do nothing other than wait and see what happens.

However the signs are encouraging from what Spors has said, the club has lacked leadership in this department after Jason Wilcox left a year ago, in fact leadership and organisation at all levels from the manager to the team and to those in the boardroom.

Finally it seems that we have someone on board who is prepared to Captain the ship and take things forward, he has made in quite clear just where the buck stops.

This season only has one thing to play for and that is the 3 points that take us above Derby County's record as the worst ever Premier League team and if we get that we are fine, no one remembers the runners up.

All Photos Via Reuters

underweststand added 14:06 - Mar 13 It sounds like Spors has the right background and hopefully we can expect to see some players from the various Sport Republic clubs getting footballing experience in other lands. We don't see "a Dibling " quite so often but perhaps some of our youngsters could benefit from a real run-out in " the man's game " albeit in another environment. The concept of "a feeder club" looks to be a good example, as everyone is indirectly " an SR employee " and so it may help us to avoid massive fees if we can find talents who could get game time in the English game in one league or another. This season we have seen the drop-out of a promotion side who just can't cut it at the highest level, and we aren't alone as we will likely be playing both Leicester and Ipswich AGAIN next season. Let's hope "Spors' signings" will improve the squad effectively.

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