One year on: How sacking Will Still ended up saving Southampton
There have been several managerial sackings in the Championship so far this season.
Unsurprisingly, Nicky Hayen was ditched by Burnley after an awful start to the campaign saw them languishing near the very bottom of the second tier.
Staying in Lancashire, it was hardly surprising when Paul Heckingbottom got his marching orders in charge of Preston North End, either, with the Lilywhites still bottom of the entire second tier.
At this exact point last year, Southampton had to deal with their own dismissal, as Will Still was removed from the dug-out, just 16 games into his cursed tenure.
Still was deservedly sacked
When the Belgian was appointed, there would've been a lot of excitement in the air on the South Coast.
Still, when he arrived to England, was known to be a promising, young head coach at only 33 years of age, having succeeded in Ligue 1 previously.
Unfortunately, instead of being a rip-roaring success, he faltered throughout his 16-game stay at St. Mary's, with only four wins coming his way.
It would become toxic very quickly at Southampton under Still's ill-fated reign, with away supporters chanting "you don't know what you're doing" to the under-fire boss, when he replaced Leo Scienza with Jack Stephens, during a slender 2-1 loss at Blackburn Rovers.
The final nail in the coffin for the unpopular 33-year-old would be a 2-0 home defeat at the hands of Preston, with Saints royalty in Matt Le Tissier acknowledging how the crowd "turned" on the manager, players, and the owners, at the full time whistle.
If a club great can sense the toxicity, a change is needed.
It wasn't a shock when he was relieved of his duties, therefore, with the Saints then going on to give another young and inexperienced head in Tonda Eckert the main job role temporarily, in the aftermath of the Belgian's departure.
Nobody could have foreseen the complete transformation Eckert would oversee, with the German now in charge for 46 Championship games in total, clinching a stunning 28 wins.
Safe to say, sacking Still ended up saving the sorry Saints.
This sacking ended up saving the Saints
It should be uttered that Still is a talented manager.
He has 40 Ligue 1 wins under his name, and he has managed to get Cameron Archer firing at his new employers, Auxerre, back out in France.
He just wasn't the correct fit for Southampton when he was in charge, with Eckert turning out to be a perfect fit as his replacement.
While certain players looked confused under the previous regime, every single player at Eckert's disposal knows exactly what they're doing, with the wins just continuing to come under the Berlin-born boss' tenure.
He hasn't lost at St. Mary's in league action since January, with the boos that echoed around the Saints' home ground at the close of the Preston loss very much a thing of the past, as cheers and jubliant shouts often reverberate around the home sections of the stadium now.
Eckert has got so much more out of individual players, as well, with James Bree a guaranteed first team starter under his guidance, when he was nowhere to be found under Still.
Additionally, Finn Azaz has turned into the goal and assist machine he is known as today at St. Mary's because of Eckert, wth zero goals or assists collected during the nine games he played under the current Auxerre manager.
Under the German, he has a ridiculous 14 goals and 15 assists to shout about, with so many more players benefitting from the Eckert arm around the shoulders.
Looking back on the Still era, one Saints fan on social media summed it up as "disastrous."
If you had to condense Eckert's time in charge of the club into one word, the adjectives chosen would be far more positive, with the Championship Chat podcast simply describing his ongoing tenure as "outstanding."
It would a picture perfect ending to this drastic turnaround of fortunes if promotion was won come the end of the season, with a grave concern that the Saints could've fallen down to League One, like the aforementioned Burnley are feeling in real time, if Still had remained at the helm.
