With Ruben Selles once again running the show as caretaker manager, the big question is how long this will continue, will Saints continue their search for a permanent manager from outside the club.

Ruben Selles arrived at St Mary's in the summer, the 39 year old Spaniard came in as assistant to Ralph Hasenhuttl to give the Austrian some much needed experience in the coaching set up as Saints revamped the managers backroom staff.

There were some that said that Selles arrived to be groomed as the replacement to Ralph, who had previously stated that when his contract was up he would retire from football.

So who is Selles and what is his background and is he qualified to take over both in the short and longer term ?

He was born in Valencia in Spain on 15th June 1983, little seems to be known of his early career choices, although he has a Master's degree in Sports & Physiology from the University of Valencia, and graduated UEFA's Pro Licence programme aged 25.

The first known sighting of him in football seems to have come shortly afterwards when he firstly became fitness coach at Greek club Aris Thessaloniki. he departed in 2009 to perform a similar role for the Villarreal youth team.

He was now upwardly mobile in football and in 2010 went to Russian side FC Shinnik Yaroslavl then in the Russian Premier L:eague as assistant manager, after a season there he returned to Aris Thessaloniki in the Greek Super League again as assistant.

Now the clubs were coming thick and fast, next destination in 2012 was Neftchi Baku an Azerbaijani football club based in the capital, Baku, that plays in the Azerbaijan Premier League again as the assistant manager.

It was a two year stay there till in 2014 he had a change of tack and then spent a year at Norwegian club Strømsgodset Toppfotball, working as Chief Data Analyst.

He was clearly looking to get experience not just in different areas of coaching but also different countries.

So in 2015 it was back to Azerbaijan, but this time to Quarabag FK as guess what Assistant manager.

Two seasons experience there then saw him going to Denmark in 2018 to join Aarhus where he helped the club in yet another assistant manager's role to their first trophy in 20 years before leaving in 2020 to become the manager of Villareal's Under 18 team, his first actual managerial role.

That was for less than a year though and in January 2021 it was back to Denmark and back to an assistant manager's role at FC Kopenhagen where he stayed until the summer of 2022 when he joined Southampton.

So it cannot be argued that Ruben has had a very grounded career in football so far, he has learnt his trade, but the worry is if he takes over for the rest of the season at St Mary's whether he can make what is a gigantic step from over a decade of being an assistant manager, to actually be running the team.

Does he have what it takes to be the main man and make the decisions.

The problem with moving up a level with the club you are with is going from being plain Ruben on the training ground to suddenly be the Gaffer.

That is why it rarely works when an assistant manager takes over as the head man at the club he is with.

So from a Saints perspective I do not think it is the right time to promote him to be the replacement for Nathan Jones, he does not have any managerial experience only as an assistant, and more poignantly he has little Premier League experience.

But perhaps the most important issue is that after the departure of Ralph and then Nathan Jones, we need a fresh face in the dressing room, although Selles might not have been the problem for the players under either manager, the truth is that if he is promoted in essence as far as the players and indeed the fans are concerned nothing has changed.

We need the bounce of a new man with new ideas not only on the pitch in the Premier League, but also on the Staplewood training ground.

The players need to be invigorated, on Monday morning turning up for training probably little had changed, things just went on as normal, it needs a new face and it needs it fast.

Whether Ruben Selles goes on to be a respected manager or as some clubs like to term it these days, Head Coach, is yet to be decided, I truly hope he does, but now is not the time to find out.

If as i mentioned the plan was to let him learn his trade in the Premier League and then groom him to take over in 2024 that is a strategy and that strategy should not change just because the situation demands it.

I don't know who the club could turn to next, clearly there was something about Jesse Marsch that the club felt was not worth offering him the deal he wanted, we have seemingly discounted Steven Gerrard and Chris Wilder already, this should be an encouraging sign, we are not panicking, at least not just yet.

But appointing Selles would be a wrong move on several levels, the first as i mentioned we need a fresh face, we also need one that the players can respect and who can impose leadership in the dressing room and we most importantly need one with experience at the level we are playing at, if not Premier League certainly a top flight club in another country, preferably one of the major leagues.

Ruben Selles will be key to helping a new man adapt, Saints have a big squad and any new man cannot afford to have to spent time working out who is up to what is going to be a tough task in avoiding relegation, he will need to be keyed in to those who need to be on the pitch from day one.

I don't think Ruben Selles is ready yet to take on the top job, I hope he is in a couple of years time.

Photo: Action Images

underweststand added 12:19 - Feb 16 assistant to the assistant - it looks like no-one has given him a real chance to do anything.
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Ifonly added 12:50 - Feb 16 You might end up hoping you're wrong about him because I can't see where else our next manager is going to come from. SR have shot themselves in the foot again. A 3.5 yr contract for NJ but JM is only worth a few months?? I'm not surprised he didn't want it and I'd be surprised if any decent manager did. What would they get out of it? In all likelihood they get relegation on their CV and a wave goodbye in the summer. My guess is that the only manager who would say yes to that is someone who is out of work and doesn't have much of a reputation to spoil. In that case, why would we want them?

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StEdmund added 13:00 - Feb 16 Why not Sellers, no one out there will want to risk their "reputation" on a relegation dog fight nor worth a punt? Cast your mind back to Nigel Atkins who gained success even in the EPL, by getting players to play for him, with all the commitment of a "family". Maybe Sellers can do the same. ... if he too has the trust of the players?
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Ifonly added 13:12 - Feb 16 I agree with StEdmund, Peter Sellers would be a good fit with our club at the moment.
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kenis added 13:19 - Feb 16 I agree with comments on this and in the other article that of all the risks to take Selles seems the greatest and I'm not aware of any examples where the step up has been made under these circumstances that doesn't end in relegation. Marsch was slightly unexpected but think the arguments made via media briefings suggested the club were happy with him. I find it hard to believe contract terms couldn't be agreed, so either the stories over player revolt (a very bad sign) or more likely lack of alignment at the top of the club meant a quick about face. Bottom line is we should be doing everything we can to stay in the premiership, anyone talking about going down and rebuilding has forgotten or didn't live through it before - all the decent players will be gone including the youngsters, the only ones that will stay are ones who are paid too much to go anywhere else (ie no-one else thinks they are worth it). We'd lose our entire back five plus the promising youngster back ups and we'd be lucky to be left with Lyanco and Stephens in front of McCarthy with Bree and possibly Small (or Larios if we are lucky as full backs). There'd be no Tino, ABK, MS, DCC, KWP (or JL probably). Midfield we'd be lucky to keep Diallo alongside Smallbone and Aribo (no JWP, ML, CA), and up front it'd be Adam Armstrong, maybe Ezozie and maybe Mara. All the rest would be out perm or on load and we'd be picking up players from other relegated clubs or from within the championship. We attracted the best(!) young players because we promised to play them in the PL (not the championship) and we attracted PL quality (in theory) slightly more experienced players because we were a PL club - they'll want out, at best we'd get a year out of them while they had one foot out the door. We should be going all out to stay in the league, with the money spent and wasted on NJ offering Marsch a longer contract or performance bonus or whatever would have been simple. The leadership being impressed by watching training is ridiculous however good a coach they think Selles is. Here's hoping I'm wrong and he's the next Mourinho or at least a lite version of him (or Frank) - but compare who they was mentored by and where they worked to Selles and I don't think its comparable levels. Amazed there is no talk of Rafa Bentitez but he'd probably cost more over six months than Marsch in 2.5 years!

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Daisy_cutter added 14:01 - Feb 16 I would keep Selles over Marsch for one good reason Selles knows where are faults are in defence just the same as the supporters on the terrace but being a coach he had to coach as he was told now the reigns are his and let's see if he can succeed where the others have failed, plus now we have new strikers that hopefully will score us some goals. Marsch would have got us relegated as we need 8 wins out of 16 and his leaky defence at Leeds is a testament to his management so come on fans let's get behind our new gaffer and sing his name too as well as the players on the field COYR's

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Colburn added 14:07 - Feb 16 I watched the fans forum and what I saw was a load of jokers out of their depth. I am not surprised to see us in this position now I've watched it.. They have turned us into a championship club on many levels and blatantly lacked the knowledge in the summer to get the right deal over the line then prayed that we would have enough firepower to scrape enough points before the January window. Jokers..

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JoeEgg added 14:41 - Feb 16 "I watched the fans forum and what I saw was a load of jokers out of their depth" Have to agree with Colburn. I would still love to know just WHO pushed for Nathan Jones and why big changes were not made after the dreadful end to last season. I also remember Nick was going on about how much time was still available after the World Cup for Saints to pull out of trouble so no need to panic! Well I think if we still want Premier League survival we might just be panicking a bit now! I guess the main reason for keeping Selles is that at least he should know the players and I will be fascinated to see what team he selects - I guess he's on a hiding to nothing against Chelsea. Chelsea cant beat anyone at the moment so they are BOUND to beat us! Any new name for manager would have to get lucky very quickly because we have a very large squad and need to prove that we can score goals! If the defence makes the occasional howler and concedes - and they dont need Bednarek to show them how this is done!- I believe this is still less serious a problem for us than the problem at the other end WHERE WE NEED TO FIND THE BACK OF THE NET - and more than once in 90 minutes. I want to see Premiership football at St Marys and surely we have a squad with enough talent to make that possible. We now need something of a miracle as the relegation race is probably down to just five clubs now. And finally , the players themselves are not entirely blameless for our disastrous situation. The fans want to support you guys - but you are the ones that have to do the damage ON THE PITCH!

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landsdownsaint added 16:53 - Feb 16 I think we’re waiting for Potter too get the sack
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SaintPaulVW added 20:23 - Feb 16 It's odd isn't it. Selles feels like an old trusted member of the Saints backroom team now stepping up as a caretaker but he's only been here 6 months! The problem with appointing your coach is that if it goes well and they're not appointed they'll leave. If it goes badly, then a new manager will definitely be appointed and they'll probably want to leave to leave the failure behind. Stepping up to manager also needs a new coaching team to be in appointed if it's going to be more than just be a temporary fix. So one way or another, unless he gets appointed as manager, this is probably the beginning of the end of our association with Selles.

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milton58 added 08:03 - Feb 17 It’s hilarious that anyone is actually considering Selles. He might be a nice guy and a trusted face but his CV is not even as good as NJ and if he was assistant at another struggling club he would not be considered and if he was the fans would be going mad at the thought. Nobody wants relegation because it’s tough and a quick return is never guaranteed but the Directors have made the type of decision in appointing NJ that would in many boardrooms result in someone being sacked from the big table and most certainly not have the choice of managers again. It seems football bucks that trend repeatedly.

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SanMarco added 08:34 - Feb 17 I don't know about others but I am beginning to run out of mental energy to be able to think of anything to say about the circus that is SFC. This guy has never been a manager. We are probably doomed but surely someone with a bit of experience might help??
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