Southampton's Wilcox calls for 'unwavering belief' after Martin hire

“Now is not the time to have one,” he quipped – although he was not joking. Wilcox, who arrived from Manchester City’s academy this year, has called for unwavering commitment and belief and the buck stops with him.

The 52 year old accepted the job offer from Sport Republic back in January, when Saints were still a Premier League club, and was travelling down from Manchester to London on his day off to craft the new game model and conduct interviews for between 12-15 important club roles.

Wilcox’s work is now officially well underway, based at Staplewood Campus day-to-day, communicating with Sport Republic’s Henrik Kraft and Rasmus Ankersen – Wilcox is also accountable to the club’s new CEO, Phil Parsons, who began working at the start of July.

READ MORE: Wilcox issues transfer update as Southampton reject first Ward-Prowse bid

“Working between Phil and Sport Republic, that’s my job to make sure everything is communicated up to them,” Wilcox told the Daily Echo.

“One of my most important roles is to make sure that the staff I’m working alongside and leading feel valued and recognised. We are on a journey and have had to press the reset button.

“The staff might not feel it now but from the experience of last year, those that were here will have grown immeasurably. We don’t want to be in the Championship.

“If I need to make big changes in infrastructure or staffing I will speak to Phil or Sport Republic but I think we’re now fairly settled.”

Wilcox himself is now settled professionally and personally – he mentions the potential “split up” of his family unit with four children – two now in London – but says he “could not think of a better place” to come down with his wife.

Although the former City man, whose top academy team have won three Premier League titles on the trot, now feels most of the infrastructure is in place for continual progress at Saints, he wanted a message for supporters to be crystal clear.

“We need to get behind the manager and players because they are going to need you, that’s really key – they are going to need you more than ever now,” he insisted.

“You don’t want to see football where they kick it 70 yards and it’s just a duel, you give the ball away again and the opposition have possession again.

“I want to visit fans’ forums and supporters clubs to say that, while your instinct after you’ve paid good money is to watch your team, you have to be really proud win, lose or draw – because we’re trying something really difficult.

“With the manager and the way he plays, if we get the right players in, we’re not going to change – we might as well get on board. These supporters are loyal and they travel thick and thin and I think they’re going to see some unbelievable things this year.

“We need unwavering belief. If we start wavering and staff start changing their thinking that is when it unravels because you start changing manager or style and players aren’t used to that.

“Now, we’re sticking to it and we’re going to celebrate together when we win and learn together when we lose.

“When you’re hanging onto Premier League survival, which I think the club have been for three years, it’s very difficult to lift your head out of the weeds.

“You’ve got to say ‘Yes, we need to stay in the Premier League and that’s very difficult but you need to ask what are we going to do now to get into the top 10 and generate asset value?’

“We’re looking at that now. I’m not afraid to say we want to win the Championship, I’ve come down here ultimately to make a difference and that means getting the vision right and winning.

“Playing this way is the hardest way to play football and the easiest way is kicking it as far away from your goal as you can and letting the opposition have the ball,” Wilcox said.

“We want to be a top 10 Premier League club and provide the best platform for young players to thrive – if we can have that as our vision, we can be the model where they don’t have to go to Germany for top-level senior football.

“There will hopefully be times when we are competing for Europe, sometimes you can be cagey and not put yourself out there but why can’t we? Look at Brighton.

“The reason I came here is because of the vision of the owners, I met Henrik and Rasmus on numerous occasions – then I met Dragan (Solak), and his passion and his frustration at how things have not gone according to plan.

“These are extremely supportive guys who have invested a lot of money into Southampton and are on the phone daily to try and improve this club. My job is to improve us on the pitch, it’s a really exciting time.”

Although Wilcox is calling for time and patience from supporters, who have already parted with hundreds or thousands in hard-earned money for very little reward over the last few seasons, he is not shirking responsibility.

The responsibility he holds is what tempted him to leave his success at Man City behind. He calls the new manager – a proper successor to long-term boss Ralph Hasenhuttl after two failed experiments with Nathan Jones and Ruben Selles – one of the most important hires of the summer.

When the Daily Echo spoke to Sport Republic’s Kraft, Ankersen and Solak back in May, they revealed Wilcox’s view would be central to the decision – confirmed a few weeks later as Swansea City boss Russell Martin.

“Russell is my hire. Of course, I have to get approval from the board but he’s my responsibility and I take full accountability,” Wilcox accepted.

“I interviewed lots of high-profile managers and I think we have got a guy that has similar values to myself as a person, which is really important – it’s probably the most important relationship in the football club because nobody can get between me and Russell.

“We can disagree on things but it’s really important that we’re completely aligned – it certainly helps the working relationship,” he added.

“Then it comes down to me looking at the way Russell sets his teams up, he’s a young and hungry manager who wants to get into the Premier League and so do I.

“When I think about the managers I played for, they all had a high level of consistency and that’s from Kenny Dalglish all the way through to Roy Hodgson – they had unwavering belief in what they wanted to see to win and they recruited players for that.

“We’re not going to bring Man City or Swansea to Southampton but we are going to bring all of our experiences to Southampton and do the best job we possibly can.

“The football side of it is my responsibility as well as supporting the rest of the football club and ultimately, if we get it right on the pitch, then the rest will take care of itself.”