Ruben Selles is taking his first senior job as a manager but he has a reputation as an outstanding coach and could give Southampton what they need right now; follow Leeds vs Saints live on Sky Sports' digital platforms from 1.30pm on Saturday; kick-off 3pm
Saturday 25 February 2023 09:36, UK
Ruben Selles has not been shy to state his intentions at Southampton. Within days of assuming temporary control, a proclamation that he wanted it permanently. At his first game, a choice of attire that screamed head coach rather than interim.
"It says everything about his preparation," David Nielsen tells Sky Sports at the mention of the suit and turtleneck. And Nielsen knows all about that. He had Selles on his coaching staff during spells in charge of Stromsgodset in Norway and Aarhus GF in Denmark.
"If you don't think you can do it, you show up in a tracksuit, you sit down with the rest of the coaching staff for the full game and then you see what happens," adds Nielsen.
"If you are sure of yourself, if you are prepared and you know you belong, that's when you show up in a suit. Ruben is in no doubt that he is able to be a head coach."
Selles has said as much himself. "I've been feeling it for the last four years," he said last week. It comes across, too, in every conversation with those who have worked with him over the course of a long and varied coaching career which has taken him all over Europe, albeit - at least until now - as a No 2 rather than a No 1.
"He knows what he wants," Lars Friis, another member of Nielsen's coaching staff back at Aarhus, tells Sky Sports with a chuckle. "He is a really good, really smart coach and he has a lot of ambition. I think, in this world, you need that."
Crucially, though, you also need to deliver. "Of course, none of it matters if Southampton concede a goal in the last five minutes," adds Nielsen. "Ruben told you he was ready, he showed up ready, he looked ready, but most important is that he won the game."
That 1-0 win over Chelsea saw Southampton move within three points of safety. At the end of it, the players could be seen pushing Selles towards a buoyant away end at Stamford Bridge to soak up the adulation of the travelling supporters.
"Now they have a chance of surviving, because of that single game," adds Nielsen. "If they had lost, everyone would be saying they need someone new, they need an experienced manager to come in. Instead, they won and the players showed they want him.
"And of course they want him. They know he is the biggest chance they have of surviving. It's very simple. It's the easiest decision anybody has ever had to take. It's the only choice."
Nielsen's admiration for Selles is obvious. It has been there since they first met while on a coaching course in Spain nearly a decade ago. "I saw what a bright, young and fantastic football mind he was and I hoped we could one day work together," he says.
It was only at that point, though, when he started working up close with Selles for the first time following his appointment as Stromsgodset's head coach in 2015, that Nielsen saw the full extent of the Spaniard's flair for coaching, analysis and player development.
"He is absolutely second to none in a number of ways," says Nielsen. "He has a determination and a willingness to actually help the players with everything, with preparation, with positioning. Everything.
"With Ruben, the players feel they have somebody who can always tell them why things did or didn't go the way they wanted during games.
"When I was a player and the team played badly, managers would just say things like, 'that was terrible, you have embarrassed the fans'. There are still some managers like that.
"But what's happened in recent years is all these young coaches have come through with an underlying plan and story for the games and this is where Ruben is exceptionally good.
"The players know they always go to him with questions. 'Why did this happen? Why didn't that happen?' He is always able to give them an answer and that helps them in the games."
It certainly helped Southampton's players against Chelsea.
Under Nathan Jones, they had lost seven of their last eight games in the Premier League, a lack of familiarity breeding chaos on and off the pitch as they lurched between systems and styles.
Selles, though, already popular with the players following his appointment as assistant in the summer after a successful spell with FC Copenhagen during which he won the Danish title, provided "stability and calm", to quote James Ward-Prowse.
There was a return to the 4-2-2-2 system used by Ralph Hasenhuttl, Jones' predecessor, and, most importantly, a clear game plan which, according to Nielsen, showed Selles' tactical acumen and eye for detail.
"I spoke to him before the Chelsea game," he says. "The game plan he had made with his staff, and the things he told me were going to occur in the game, all went exactly as he said. Exactly.
"Right down to how he would use any pauses or breaks in play. So, when Cesar Azpilicueta went down, just as Chelsea needed a goal, you could see how Ruben used that time - 10 or 12 minutes - to get his messages across to the players.
"Then, there was really no threat at all at the end of the game and that is the result of Ruben's work. OK, Chelsea had one big chance, of course, but basically Southampton were comfortable.
"Normally, 1-0 up in a difficult away game like that, when you have made all five of your substitutions, the end of the game will be pure defending, but this game wasn't like that.
"And this was his game, you have to understand. All that he put in, with me, with the other managers he has been working with, all the time he has spent by himself, it was all there.
"But it still needed to be carried out and that is the biggest question for anybody: can you produce when your back is against the wall and you really have to? This was the biggest game of Ruben's life and he executed it - every little thing - to perfection.
"It was not luck at all. It was just pure brilliance."
It came as no surprise to Nielsen, who oversaw Aarhus' best season in decades together with Selles in 2019/20, and the same goes for Friis, who has also followed his former colleague closely.
"He is a coach who works very, very hard on the small details," Friis explains. "He doesn't want any form of coincidence on the pitch. He always has a clear direction and leaves nothing to chance."
Selles' attention to detail stems from a background in analysis.
"He is deep into that," adds Friis. "He is born and raised as an analyst, so he is out of that school and that's clear when you work with him. He is great with video. He finds a lot of things by studying video and he makes small clips to help the players."
As for his philosophy, Southampton's performance against Chelsea showed the emphasis Selles places on defensive solidity. "He is a big believer that it's the defensive part that gives the victories," says Friis. "He is really strong on how to organise a team."
It is an approach he has honed during a career in football which has spanned 15 years and included spells in Spain, Greece, Russia and Azerbaijan as well as Norway, Denmark and England.
"Most Spanish coaches, they want to keep the ball away from the opponent for a long time by having possession, but Ruben is more international," explains Nielsen.
"He has tried a lot," adds Friis. "Different styles, different leagues, different cultures and I think that gives you a lot because you need to learn, adapt, and dig into different things."
It has shown him the importance of pragmatism, according to Nielsen. "He's got a strong philosophy on how he wants to defend and this is also because, as a coach, he knows you need to understand what kinds of jobs you are going to end up getting."
"You can have a brilliant offensive mind, but, in his kind of position, there's a really good chance that your first job as a head coach is going to be with a team that is struggling and just needs points."
Selles and Nielsen found that out for themselves at Stromsgodset.
"We were good team and we had fantastic offensive talents, with a young Martin Odegaard as the jewel of that, but 14 months in, we found were losing games 5-3, 5-2," says Nielsen.
"We sat there after we got the sack and we smiled at each other and said, 'Now we know. Never again. Never, never again'. We both developed a really strong defensive philosophy after that.
"Also, with the kinds of jobs we had after that, we had to defend because they were fragile teams. If you concede a goal with a fragile team, then you are in trouble. So, you need to start somewhere."
Southampton, it seems, have come to the same conclusion.
"They won the game against Chelsea 1-0, so what was the best thing for them?" asks Nielsen. "To have someone with an offensive mind? Some offensive genius who can move the full-backs inside and then overlap them with the number eights? No. No, no, no. That's not what is required at this moment."
Instead, they have Selles, an outstanding coach who, to quote Nielsen, has "paid his dues", and whose determination to seize his chance after so many years in the shadows is clear.
"He has been at Southampton six months, two managers have changed, but he is still there," says Nielsen. "Ask yourself why. It's because every time somebody asks the players whether he is helping them, they say yes. So, of course he is still there. He is ready."
Follow Leeds vs Saints live on Sky Sports' digital platforms from 1.30pm on Saturday; kick-off 3pm; free match highlights available from 5.30pm
