Southampton’s return to the Premier League next season is starting to feel a lot more real as the players returned for the first day of pre-season on Wednesday.
Buoyed by the news that manager Russell Martin agreed a new contract a day earlier, the Southampton players returned to their Staplewood training ground ready for a summer of hard work.
There were a couple of new faces, with experienced Premier League duo Adam Lallana and Charlie Taylor both reporting for their first training session having arrived as free agents.
Taylor Harwood-Bellis was also on duty, with confirmation of last season’s loan being made permanent on Monday.
Southampton fans can look forward to a lot more club content following the return from holidays and Martin has already provided a real gem at the expense of Adam Armstrong.
Russell Martin mocks Adam Armstrong as Southampton return to training
Armstrong played a starring role under Martin last season, scoring 24 goals and providing 13 assists as he helped fire Southampton to promotion.
Having signed for the club in 2021, Southampton fans finally saw the best of the striker who had struggled in his two seasons in the Premier League.
It was Armstrong who scored the most crucial goal of them all last campaign, firing the only goal of the game as the Saints beat Leeds United 1-0 in the Championship play-off final.
That goal at Wembley secured an instant return to the top flight for Southampton and Martin joked about that very moment in a video posted on Southampton’s social media.
The video posted on ‘X’ shows Lallana, Martin and Armstrong walking onto the training pitch at Staplewood with the caption: ‘Always time for that Adam Armstrong goal’.
What is said at the start of the clip is difficult to make out, but it sounds as though Armstrong says: “It was good, wasn’t it?”
To which the manager manager replied: “After you scored that goal at Wembley it was, yeah”.
Martin then turns to the camera and jokes: “Sorry, he was just talking about his goal again.”
Martin relationship with Southampton players key to success
Whilst Martin has evidently done a brilliant job in gaining promotion whilst overhauling the playing style in his first season at Southampton, it is perhaps his man-management skills which are most impressive.
The 38-year-old adopted a broken dressing room last summer following a bottom-place finish in the Premier League and subsequent relegation.
Numerous players left, with some remaining at the club despite perhaps thinking they would get a move.
However, Martin worked to instil a culture at the football club that represented his values and his honesty and personable nature have endeared him to both players and fans.
The video posted by Southampton highlights this, but this is just one of countless examples of the way in which Martin has changed the environment at the St Mary’s club from an incredibly toxic one to a place where everyone is pulling in the same direction.
With his new contract confirmed, long may it continue.
