Michael Reeves
A deal has been reached between the Swans and Southampton that will allow the newly relegated side to confirm Russell Martin as their new manager this afternoon.
Martin will sign a three year deal to lead the Saints Championship season next season following their relegation from the Premier League this time around.
As reported on here yesterday, talks were getting closer to an agreement with a reported fee of £400k being agreed for Martin with some additional amounts for the backroom staff that he will take to St Mary’s with him which is believed to include at least Matt Gill and Dean Thornton. As per yesterday’s report the total is less than £1m and expected to be much nearer the £700k mark.
The announcement will bring two an end an almost two year stay in SA1 and will see the manager move for a relatively small amount – certainly well short of the amounts that were banded about earlier this season in some sections of the media.
Saints’ owners Sport Republic have recently released a statement regarding organisational changes, which included Martin Semmens leaving his role as Southampton CEO and director, while they stated that the club’s leadership team for next season would be announced in the coming weeks.
Martin is expected to show interest in some of the Swans players once the move is completed and the transfer window formally opens but the Swans are believed to be ready to hold firm on their pricing valuations of the players in question and are not prepared to let their manager tempt players away for relative peanuts.
Several names have already been linked with as a replacement and the betting markets are expected to move significantly on this over the next couple of days as the speculation intensifies.
But for now it seems the speculation is finally going to over and Russell Martin will be a Saint!
Good luck mush you won’t have the time and patience our beautiful club have shown you. So you better hit the ground running or you’ll be another victim of their managerial merry go round thanks for the double Doube #uppaswans.
Disgraceful decision by the board to let him go, and for that price as well. Same old story for Swansea. A massive loss, best of luck Russell, was on to something big with him.
I wish him good luck but I always felt he lacked tactical awareness and knowledge. A big thank you though for the double double!!
I don’t blame him I blame the owners they don’t care about the Swansea that’s all they care about is their dc football team they should sell the Swansea to someone that can run the club by some good players and get back to the Premier ship
Gutted he is going .he is going as funds will be available to him to rebuild at Southampton who can blame him he got us the double double.shame on Swamsea city owners for letting him go and not providing the funds that he required
He.s a good young manager with a bit of help from the Swans board he would have got
us to the play offs at least. He did his best with what he had God help who ever takes over