Saints have announced that Sammy Lee and David Watson have joined Ronald Koeman's coaching staff at St Mary's.

As predicted in the media over the weekend Ex Liverpool and briefly Saints player Sammy Lee along with Norwich goalkeeping coach David Watson have joined the management team under new manager Ronald Koeman.

The significant thing about the appointment is that unlike the other members of Koeman's set up these are positions filled by the Club rather than the direct choice of Koeman although he would have had some input.

The reasoning behind this is two fold, firstly the club are keen to have coaches in place who are not the manager's men as such, this was the case until the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino, when he arrived from Espanyol it saw a change in the coaching staff as he was allowed to bring in his own men, when he departed he took them all with him, something that Saints had been keen not to happen previously, hence the fact that the coaching staff had been picked by the club and not the manager and would remain in place whenever the manager changed, thus keeping stability and continuity for the playing squad.

Why Nicola Cortese suddenly did an about turn in his thinking in January 2013 we will never know, although conspiracy theories abound.

The second reason for bringing in coaches independent of the manager this time is experience and knowledge of the Premier League, both Lee and Watson have that and can assist the manager in areas where he has no or little experience.

Overall though it shows that th board are thinking about how they rebuild the structure at the club on the playing side of things and have done so wisely rather than just let another manager bring in his own coaching staff lock stock and barrel only to see them leave with him when he eventually departs.

Photo: Action Images

pintsizedsaint added 09:10 - Jul 1 Good thinking from us here. I guess there is no conspiracy regarding why NC allowed MP to bring his own; he was desperate to get MP and that felt like a demand he could live with! At the end of it all it didn't affect him but caused a lot of trouble for those who had to pick up the pieces.
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