Southampton FC chief makes Jurgen Klopp claim amid Will Still links | OneFootball

The Saints parted ways with their last permanent manager, Ivan Juric, at the start of April.

Johannes Spor, Southampton Group's technical director, has revealed that he wants a more Jurgen Klopp style of manager as he looks to find Ivan Juric's replacement.

The search for the Saints' next full-time boss is now into its sixth week. Juric was sacked once the club's relegation to the Championship was confirmed, and his interim replacements, Simon Rusk and Adam Lallana, have picked up some extra points since then, guaranteeing that they won't be the worst Premier League team of all time.

Will Still is the latest prominent name to pop up on Southampton's radar. It was announced on Sunday that he had decided to leave RC Lens and will come back to the UK after just one season with the French side, making him an obvious potential contender to take one of the vacant upper Championship/lower Premier League jobs.

Southampton have approached him, as per The Independent, and he is now reportedly in "advanced talks" with the south coast-based outfit. Still and Sheffield Wednesday boss Danny Rohl are down to the "final two" of the Saints' search, according to Sky Sports.

Johannes Spor makes next Southampton boss claim involving Jurgen Klopp

The next manager that is brought to St Mary's will be the first to arrive under Spor's watch. It has been reported a number of times that the German is keen to get someone with experience of managing in England, someone who understands the culture more than their previous boss, but he's also admitted that he's targeting a new style of play.

Under Russell Martin, who got the club promoted back to the Premier League this time last year, the Saints were criticised for being too dogmatic in their approach. Martin wasn't willing to move away from his possession-heavy ways, which often caused a lot of problems for themselves in the Premier League.

Spor is looking to move away from that philosophy a bit. He told TNT Sports that what he is looking for in the first-team's next head honcho is: "Someone, first of all, who I really think fits into this football club on the day to day. Someone who comes in here every day and is just a good match with the people we have, the people he maybe brings with him.

"Because this football club has development as one of the main headlines, and we have to work together on this. This is absolutely the most important thing.

"And then it’s about style of play, an understanding of English mentality and football in general, and then it goes deeper and deeper, we have a very clear profile on every football aspect, but on a high level, it’s about finding the right person that fits into this club and has this knowledge as described."

Managers like Martin whose teams play the way that they play get compared to Manchester City's Pep Guardiola, the innovator of modern possession-based football. Spor has admitted that he is looking more for a Klopp than a Guardiola, and that he is "very confident" that the next appointment will be the right one.

"If you take those great examples, I think it will be more the Klopp direction. More the high intensity, full of energy, kind of football."

Southampton need flexibility with their next manager

A lot of bosses in football are now too focused on their core principles and are scared to move away from them if they are not working for fear of being ridiculed or being moved outside the box of a modern manager.

Mohammed Salah recently praised Liverpool's Arne Slot for being tactically flexible and being able to adjust things to what each game requires. Southampton need that approach.

They've tried the tunnel-vision one. It worked in the Championship, but they were massively found out once they made it to the top flight. They can't afford to have the same disproved approach if they want to get themselves back to being an established first division club.