SAINTS manager Ruben Selles has been keeping one eye on loanee Will Smallbone and admits the Republic of Ireland international ‘deserves a chance’ at St Mary’s.

The 23 year old Basingstoke-born midfielder was one of the club’s best performers during this campaign’s pre-season tour in Austria, under former manager Ralph Hasenhuttl.

The visit to Austria was among Selles’s first experiences as a coach at Saints, appointed to be Hasenhuttl’s number two over the summer before replacing Nathan Jones in the hot seat this year.

Smallbone was, along with Nathan Tella, loaned out to play regular first-team football in the Championship. Both Saints academy graduates have excelled in their roles.

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While Tella has hit 17 league goals for Burnley, Smallbone was recently voted Stoke City’s player of the month for February and celebrated with a trio of assists in a 5-1 win at Sunderland.

Asked if Smallbone is someone Selles wants in his squad next season, the Spaniard told the Daily Echo: “Yes, Will has been doing really good in Stoke and had a good pre-season with us before he went.

“As I said, I always like when the player has the feeling of the club at his core. Will is a Southampton boy and has been really working well here.”

Selles added: “He is growing but let’s see as I don’t lose one second to think about next season, but Will is a Southampton player and he deserves a chance.”

Smallbone has seen his role shifted around the field for Stoke this season, operating as a six/eight as well as the creative 10 he had often been tasked with at Saints.

He has missed only three Championship matches all campaign as Alex Neil’s side sit 13th in the table and are not at risk of relegation to the third division.

Daily Echo:

“He’s not going to be naturally creative number 10, nor somebody who plays in pockets and plays on the half-turn all the time. He’s industrious, he runs beyond the ball,” Neil said, of Smallbone.

Selles, having worked with him briefly in July last year, was asked to define what sort of person and player he got to know Smallbone as.

“Unfortunately not as much as a person but as a player, I know him to be a midfield number eight, who plays as a 10 and has the technical ability to have distribution, finishing and quality in the last third,” he responded.  

“He also is integrated into the system, the high pressing, in the medium block. I think he has everything to be successful at Southampton.”

At the time of print, Smallbone could have been set to make his senior international debut in Republic of Ireland’s friendly versus Latvia. They play France in European Championship qualifying later this week.