Southampton: Saints eyeing Norwich technical director Webber
By Marc Walker
Southampton are reportedly readying a formal approach to bring Norwich City Technical Director Stuart Webber to St Mary’s.
According to a report from the Telegraph yesterday, the Saints hierarchy have been impressed by his work at both Norwich and Huddersfield and are prepared to offer him a similar role on the south coast.
He has been credited with a large influence in Huddersfield’s Premier League promotion campaign back in 2016/17 and the current fortunes of Norwich, who currently sit top of the Championship table.
At 34, Webber is very young for the roles that he has occupied in his time in football. With movement and changes at boardroom level at Saints, a shift towards the modern end of the game seems to be favoured by those making the decisions.
Saints are looking for replacements for Les Reed and Martin Hunter, who both left the club last week after a thorough review of the current situation at St Mary’s got underway.
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Despite two bodies leaving the club, it is possible that Webber could take on some of the work of both men after the experience he has in his previous jobs.
Prior to his roles as Sporting Director and Director of Professional Football at Norwich and Huddersfield respectively, he had the job of overseeing player recruitment at Wolves as Head of Scouting.
Les Reed was supposedly the man in charge of recruitment at Saints and worked closely with Hunter and Ross Wilson, who has the title of Director of Football Operations.
The club had a lot of success with their recruitment initially after returning to the Premier League, but that has changed dramatically with a number of signings that haven’t paid off in the past three seasons.
The promotion of youth academy products to the first-team has also reduced significantly, and a boardroom shake-up certainly shows where the club think the problems lie.
Despite being under pressure, it appears that first-team manager Mark Hughes will keep his job after a report this week revealed he has the backing of the Saints board and will be in charge for their next game against Fulham in two weeks time.