Ups and Downes: Flynn shaking off sour taste in pursuit of more play-off glory
“That’s an understatement,” Flynn Downes grinned.
The midfielder had just marked his 100th Southampton appearance with a crucial opening goal in a statement 2-1 win at Championship champions-elect Coventry back in March when asked to reflect on “a few ups and downs” of his Saints career to date.
It’s been quite a journey for the Essex boy who arrived on the south coast in the summer of 2023, initially reuniting with Russell Martin, his former manager at Swansea.
Straightaway there were complications. Downes’ loan signing from boyhood club West Ham was delayed by a bout of food poisoning that he revealed earlier this season still has not completely left his system, at times compromising his energy levels and performances.
But the 27-year-old is a fierce competitor and was not going to let that get in the way of repaying Martin’s faith. Quickly establishing himself as a fans’ favourite at St Mary’s, he was only narrowly pipped to the club’s Player of the Season award by 24-goal Wembley hero Adam Armstrong as Saints won promotion back to the Premier League in his first year.
That summer his loan move was made permanent, along with close friend Taylor Harwood-Bellis’, now two of Tonda Eckert’s most influential dressing-room leaders as Saints embark on another play-off assault richer for the experience of their 2024 triumph.
Downes was playing regularly in the Premier League until Martin was replaced by Ivan Jurić with the team seemingly fighting a losing battle in their quest to avoid relegation. His form dipped, by his own admission, and a falling-out with Jurić led to him seeking a new club.
“No one has ever spoken to me about the Jurić situation, but I’m as straight up as they come. We had a row on that pitch over there,” he points across the grounds at Staplewood.
“I was like, ‘well, the manager wants me to leave the club – I’ve got no chance, that’s it’. He came out in the press and said I was desperate to leave – I was never desperate to leave.
“We spoke to Ipswich, but it was my choice not to go. I didn’t say anything. I thought, ‘everyone in the changing room and everyone I care about knows the truth’. I got a bit of stick from the fans, but they don’t know the story. If they knew the story, they wouldn’t have.
“Every time I put that shirt on there’s no one that wants to win more than me. No one in a Saints shirt. So it did hurt me a little bit because no one knew what had happened, but that’s long gone now. It’s done, I let that go a long time ago.”
Happier times: Downes celebrates Saints' 2024 play-off final triumph
It took a while for things to improve for Saints. Simon Rusk took the reins for the final seven games of the Premier League campaign, before Will Still was tasked with leading another Championship resurrection.
Only the November arrival of Tonda Eckert, the club’s fourth boss since Martin’s departure 11 months prior, sparked an upturn in results, with Downes playing some of the best football of his career as an integral piece of a resurgent Saints side that rose from 21st in the table.
“From where we’ve come from to where we are now, it’s hard to say ‘we deserve it’ but we’ve done so well. Never in a million years did we think we would be challenging for second,” he said, speaking ahead of the two-legged play-off semi-final against Middlesbrough after Saints signed off the regular season 19 league matches unbeaten.
Victory over Ipswich, the club Downes grew up with, spending 15 years of his life from academy to first team, and nearly rejoined in January 2025, would have given Saints an outside shot of automatic promotion going into the final day.
Downes missed the reunion, a helter-skelter 2-2 draw at a raucous St Mary’s a fortnight ago, and Saints’ FA Cup semi-final at Wembley three days earlier through suspension.
A confrontation with former teammate Liam Cullen at Swansea, for which Downes was booked, retrospectively led to a three-match ban. Whilst not the lowest of lows, it did disrupt his momentum after a series of impressive displays.
“I need to tone it down a little bit,” he admits, but insists there was no malicious intent behind the challenge.
Downes plays on the edge because he has to – that’s his role – and sometimes because he feels the team needs it.
At Swansea, Saints were a goal down in the first half. With Leo Scienza down on the floor, Gonçalo Franco kicked the ball at him. Downes didn’t like it, and moments later found himself embroiled in a tussle following his clash with Cullen.
“That is my game – I can’t lose it,” he says of his feistiness. “But at the same time I’m at an age now where I can’t be putting the team at risk. Against Swansea I could’ve got sent off.
“They were trying to have a little bully-up. If you’re losing those battles, everyone can feel it. I wanted to give us a little bit of grit – crossed the mark, yes, but I’m learning from that. I definitely won’t do that again – that’s something I’ve got to work on, but it is my game. It’s a fine line.”
Emotions were running high on Downes' return to Swansea
On his own personal performance arc, Downes believes it mirrors the team’s.
“Obviously it started slow – I wasn’t really myself at the start of the season, but now I feel good, I feel fresh, I feel like I’ve got a lot of energy and a lot to give to the team, so I’m happy.
“But I feel like I can do more and add more to my game, both with and without the ball, so it’s a work in progress.”
One of those things he’s been keen to add more of is goals, having followed up his poacher’s finish at Coventry with a neatly-taken volley at Wrexham.
“It’s definitely something I wanted to add to my game, 100 per cent,” he says. “It’s obviously hard in the position I play – I’m the more defensive player – to get forward, but when I’m in and around the box I fancy myself at the minute.”
It’s good to see Downes enjoying his football again, roaming the Staplewood corridors with an infectious smile, occasionally up to no good in the company of Harwood-Bellis and Ryan Manning. Between his proposed exit and ongoing health issues, it hasn’t always been the case.
“I was struggling, massively,” he admits, on the topic of illness. “It’s a hard one, because at what point do you have to take responsibility and be like, ‘right, this is it, I’ve got this, I have to live with it’ and just crack on?
“It’s a hard thing to weigh up because there are times when I feel crap and you start to feel a bit sorry for yourself and then it’s like, ‘I’ve got to play a game now’.
“I think it will [leave my system] but when it flares up, you’re in a pickle. It’s affected me so much already this year, but there’s not a chance I’m letting it ruin my season. I’ve tried to just push on and we’re here now, doing alright, so we’ll see what happens.”
Downes and Martin shared a strong bond from their Swansea days
Downes brings up his disagreement with Jurić unprompted. It’s clear that, from having almost a family-like relationship with Martin, it offered him some valuable perspective.
“I feel like I’m a totally different person/player than two or three years ago,” he reveals. “People say that experience is priceless, and it really is. Over the last couple of years my views on the game have changed so much, and obviously working with so many different managers.
“I always felt that I had to have a really close connection with a manager to play well – that’s why, when I fell out with Jurić, performances dropped; everything dropped.
“I had to look at that and be like, ‘hold on, that doesn’t affect me. If I don’t like the manager and don’t get on with them, it’s still my responsibility to go on to the pitch and perform’.
“It was massive for me to have a really good relationship with the manager. I’m not saying I don’t with Tonda – we really get on – but I’ve had to take a step back, look at myself and be like, ‘hold on, you’re here to do a job, you’re here to win games of football and that’s all that matters’."
Saints fans gathered in their thousands to welcome the team coach's arrival before Tuesday's Championship play-off semi-final second leg against Middlesbrough
Eckert has brought out the best in Downes, whose competitiveness sets the tone for the whole team to tick.
“Tonda is unbelievable. I really get on with him. He is a great bloke, to be honest. He’s really humble, he’s a really nice guy.
“He is football, football, football, but you’ve got to be. Why do you think we are where we are? I think his player management is unreal, I don’t really know what else to say, to be honest. I can’t fault him.
“Even if I’m not playing I’m not annoyed with him. I get it – his whole thing is to win games of football, and I’m more than on board with that. He’s been unreal this year.”
Downes says he’s “never played in a team where this happens” when asked about Eckert’s rotation policy. It’s been necessary, of course, given Saints’ relentless schedule in recent weeks, but to have so many players in form at the same time is, in the eyes of his midfield enforcer, “so rare”.
“You look at Braggy (Cameron Bragg), Caspar [Jander], Shea [Charles], whenever there’s a rotation they come in and play unreal. You definitely have that in the back of your head: you know you have to perform, otherwise they’ll step up and they’ll perform.
“I don’t think we had that at the start of the season, but since Tonda took over it’s been a night and day difference.”
Contrasts between the first months of the season and the last are stark, but what about comparisons with two years ago? The midfield linchpin of Saints’ 2024 promotion-winning party, Downes points to a shift in mindset, helped by having achieved this same goal before.
Even when facing Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final, he’s adamant his teammates believed they would win. They were only eight minutes away from doing so.
“I feel like this year our mentality is very different. That’s how it feels. It feels like we’ve got winners,” he explains.
“For me, personally, I feel like we’ve got a whole group of winners. All of us from two years ago that are still here: we’re older now, we’re wiser, and we’ve done it. It’s such a valuable thing to have.
“It does feel different. It feels like we’re just churning wins out, where I feel like two years ago there were a few more draws. We were still playing unbelievable, but this year it feels like we’re just ticking games off; win that, tick it off, on to the next.”
Differences, certainly, but there are parallels this time around that won’t have gone unnoticed for Downes, or indeed any of Saints’ nine current players who experienced play-off glory two seasons ago.
Again, Saints have finished fourth in the league, as they did in 2024, and went into the second leg of the semi-final, at home, following a goalless draw on the road.
This summer marks 25 years of St Mary’s, and many will point to the 3-1 victory over West Brom as the greatest atmosphere the stadium has ever produced. Downes is one of them.
“That’s the best I’ve ever seen St Mary’s, by a mile. It was the best,” he recalls with a smile. “It’s so infectious and the players can feel that. I think you could see it in the performance. I knew the atmosphere would be good, but there was just a bit more to it. That rubs off on the players so much.
“It was so good to play in, especially for the way I play – I play with my heart on my sleeve, so when the fans are up it just gets me going even more. It was good, really enjoyable.
“You could see it against Arsenal – the place was bouncing, and it just gives the players an extra 10 per cent, it’s crazy.”
Not that any extra motivation is required, but Downes is not alone in still holding a sour taste in his mouth – not the raw chicken liver from 2023, but from Saints’ last Premier League season.
This time around, as illustrated by FA Cup wins over Fulham and Arsenal, and how closely City were pushed in the semi-final, he believes the club is better equipped to compete.
“It would be everything,” he says of a top-flight return. “I think this squad deserve it more than anything I’ve been involved in. From where we were as a team, as a club, we were in a bad spot at the start of the season. That makes me want it even more.
“I don’t think any of us done ourselves justice two years ago, for whatever reason. I take responsibility completely for my performances. I’d love to have another crack at it.
“All the players are good enough to play in that league – we’ve shown it against three top-half Prem teams. We’ve more than competed, we’ve won two of the games, so I think that says a lot.
“Just on a personal level, I came to this club wanting to play in the Premier League because the club deserves it, the fans deserve it, everyone around deserves it, so to be able to repay that just a little bit and help the team get there? That’s everything to me.”
This interview was originally published inside SAINTS, the club’s matchday programme, for the Championship play-off semi-final second leg against Middlesbrough on Tuesday evening.
