Martin delighted with Calderwood's addition to coaching staff
Southampton manager Russell Martin has spoken of his delight at being able to add Colin Calderwood to his coaching staff.
The vastly experienced 58-year-old was appointed as Men’s First Team Coach earlier this week, further strengthening Martin’s backroom team and bringing the two back together once again.
“First and foremost, he’s a brilliant human being,” said the Saints boss at his pre-Millwall press conference. “I really trust him and know him very well.
“We worked together at Norwich many moons ago when he was the assistant manager. I used to moan all the time to him and he had a brilliant way of being able to deal with that.
“He just has a great relationship with the players, and he’s a coach throughout my career who I’ve stayed in real constant contact with and discussed football, so we’ve spoken a lot even when he’s not worked with me.
“I tried at my two previous clubs and it couldn’t quite happen for various reasons. He’s been a manager, an assistant manager, he’s helped some young managers recently get promoted, in Neil Critchley and Jon Brady, and added huge experience and value to them, and then he’s been asked by a few others to go in.
“We’ve spoken about it a lot over the last couple of years about the right timing and the right opportunity and I’m really grateful to the ownership group and to Jason [Wilcox] and Phil [Parsons] for supporting us.
“I think he’s going to help me, Gilly, Carl, all of us, because he’s done every job pretty much and has lived what we’re living right now literally thousands of times as a player and coach.
“He will add a huge amount. He will challenge, he will question things, he will support us, he’ll give us his own experience and all of that will be huge, but also he’s just a brilliant person and he will come in and help build relationships even more than we already have and really solidify some of the work we’re doing and I think it’s a massive addition for us as a group.
“We have a young staff and I think it will only help us all. We’re really clear on what we want to do and the process of how we do it, but being able to touch on someone with his experience is going to be invaluable.”