Tyler Dibling future, 'Jurgen Klopp football' and manager hunt – Southampton Group Technical Director Johannes Spors details Saints next steps

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Southampton will spend next season in The Championship after their relegation from the Premier League, but there are plenty of reasons for positivity as they look ahead to 2025/26. TNT Sports sat down with recently appointed Group Technical Director Johannes Spors to hear about the direction of the club and his key priorities, including the search for a new permanent manager.

Tyler Dibling future, 'Jurgen Klopp football' and new manager search - how Southampton are planning for life after Premier League relegation

Image credit: Getty Images

What could next season look like for Southampton after their relegation from the Premier League?

Whilst The Championship will provide a challenging environment after a turbulent 2024/25 campaign, there are plenty of reasons to be positive, as the club seek to rebuild on and off the pitch.

At the heart of that project is Saints' Group Technical Director Johannes Spors, who was appointed to his role in February, and whose encompassing remit involves oversight on recruitment, driving player development - and the sizeable task of appointing a new manager.

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The German, a former football executive with RB Leipzig and Hamburg, sat down with TNT Sports ahead of Southampton's trip to Everton this Sunday - the final men's match at Goodison Park, live on TNT Sports and discovery+ - to share the latest on that hunt for a new boss, the future of the club's prized assets, and what goals he has for next season.

"It’s very important to find the right structure for the football department, for this football club," Spors began, assessing how his first three months have panned out.

"[We’ve] worked a lot on scouting and recruitment processes, on analytical processes, on the right communication structure that we have. Bringing people together but also bringing new expertise into the club.

"We’ve had a big focus on that in the first three months. This process is basically finished, I would say. That was always my goal to finish the season knowing the structure is in place to enter a busy summer and also to enter into a difficult next season.

"That was maybe the first priority, always on parallel with the manager search. I think I’m in a very comfortable situation that I have time for this [the manager search].

"I’ve built a small team with different people around me with different skillsets; analytics, classical scouting but also people with different skills who see the same thing from different angles.

"And that brought up a lot of very interesting candidates, and I’m very confident that we will make that appointment at the right time, but especially with the right person."

In his view, what characteristics is Spors looking for in the next Saints boss?

"Someone, first of all, who I really think fits into this football club on the day to day," he said.

"Someone who comes in here every day and is just a good match with the people we have, the people he maybe brings with him.

"Because this football club has development as one of the main headlines, and we have to work together on this. This is absolutely the most important thing.

"And then it’s about style of play, an understanding of English mentality and football in general, and then it goes deeper and deeper, we have a very clear profile on every football aspect, but on a high level, it’s about finding the right person that fits into this club and has this knowledge as described."

Quizzed on whether Southampton will lean towards the archetypal models of a more possession-heavy Pep Guardiola team, or a more typical Jurgen Klopp style, Spors added: "If you take those great examples, I think it will be more the Klopp direction.

"More the high intensity, full of energy, kind of football."

One of the main questions on the lips of Southampton fans is the future of Tyler Dibling, the club's 19-year-old winger who has thrilled in this season's Premier League with his daring, dribbling and creativity.

Youri Tielemans of Aston Villa and Tyler Dibling of Southampton during the Premier League match between Southampton FC and Aston Villa FC at St Mary's Stadium on April 12, 2025 in Southampton, England.

Image credit: Getty Images

Spors shared his opinion on the approach he will take with Dibling - and other individual cases - in the forthcoming summer transfer window.

"Like every football club, we try to keep our best players," he said.

"But we also know there will be a market in the summer. In every single case, we will make an individual decision on what is the best in that situation.

"In general it’s a very good situation to have a player like Tyler Dibling, he did a fantastic development. If development is one of our most important headlines in everything that we do, then it is important that there are role models and examples of players that go through the Southampton way, and set foot on the St Mary’s grass in a first-team game.

"He [Dibling] is a great example, not to forget Jay Robinson, the next young player, who we gave a debut to in the last couple of weeks, and this is a good success story for the academy.

"They also play the under 21s [PL2 play-off] final against Manchester City next week, so there are a lot of positives coming from the academy and I will always be open to integrate young players from the academy into our first-team environment."

Spors has plentiful experience across the football landscape, and particularly of multi-club models from his time with Red Bull.

With Saints majority owners Sport Republic also employing that approach via stakes in Valenciennes and Goztepe - Spors' skillset is a welcome fit.

His talent-spotting resume includes helping to bring former Liverpool star Roberto Firmino to Hoffenheim in 2011, and he detailed his process for identifying players that can go right to the very top of the game.

"There are a couple in the past, [Liverpool's] Ibrahima Konate was a typical scouting player in the Red Bull time, and many others," Spors said.

"It’s always a very clear profiling first. It’s always important to identify as a club what you really need, not to be too reactive on market opportunities but the first thing is we need to understand what we really need.

"And then I’ve changed the structure in recruitment, we made it very clear what departments we have in recruitment, who has responsibility, what are the profiles we are looking for? The profile means, what ideally does the player look like, but also what budgets are we thinking.

"And then most importantly, a rhythm of meetings, a clear communication structure, I have the right people in my office very often.

"Scouting is about structure, this leads to success."

Speaking of success, Spors has identified a softer metric that he is targeting next season - and in another Klopp parallel, it's something the ex-Liverpool boss spoke about when he arrived in Anfield in 2015.

"Having memorable games, that's my first target, that the people really want to see the next game," Klopp said during his Liverpool unveiling.

"You leave the stadium, you want to see the next game, you can't wait to see the next game. That's what football should be."

On his own wish for connecting with the fans next term, Spors highlighted a specific example.

"Every time this season I went out of the stadium - we have this fantastic idea of the fanzone - and I haven’t seen it crowded very often, and I want to see it crowded very often," he said.

"That’s honestly what counts, make people happy, win games, bring them to the stadium, let them celebrate games when we win – that’s why we are doing this.

"And then this will bring us to a successful season."

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