St Mary’s turns toxic as Preston beat Southampton 2-0 in the Championship on Saturday, to pile more pressure on Will Still.
Lewis Dobbin gave Preston the lead, tapping home a scrappy rebound in the 35th minute after his initial effort was saved by Alex McCarthy.
Southampton’s best chance came in the 70th minute when Caspar Jander saw his curling effort come back off the crossbar.
Preston then sealed all three points it in stoppage time with Mads Frøkjær-Jensen’s fine finish, seeing Preston climb into the playoff places.
As the whistle blew for half time, home fans booed and chanted for owners to “Sport Republic, get out of our club”
Preston also took to taunt Will Still with “sacked in the morning” chants, but the home fans instead defended their beleaguered boss with a reply of “sack the board”.
Southampton meanwhile have now won just twice all season (W2 D6 L5), dropping to 21st in the Championship.
Radio Solent Sports Editor Adam Blackmore tweeted: “Will Still and Sport Republic are rightly kopping it tonight from #SaintsFc fans
“But there are lots of players guilty of letting the fans down
“The lack of backbone isn’t through a lack of ability, it’s a lack of effort & commitment – and that’s unforgivable
“This squad is more than capable of competing at the right end of the table but they’re not and they’ll happily let the manager take the fall on their behalf – where is the passion?!?
“Giving your all isn’t a tactic, it’s a prerequisite ffs!! 🤦♂️”
Nathan Wood at 38 seconds.. interesting gesture towards the #SaintsFC fans 🤨pic.twitter.com/EMamgfcQIo
— Alex (@AlexComber_) November 2, 2025
Southampton 1-0 down to Preston at half-time.
Fans turn on owners Sport Republic. pic.twitter.com/Uf3rlUszHJ
— Second Tier podcast (@secondtierpod) November 1, 2025
Not pretty scenes at St Mary’s as Southampton are beaten by Preston North End #Saintsfc pic.twitter.com/9TzlM5uCrg
— Dan George (@DanGeorgee) November 1, 2025
Full time at St Mary’s.
#Saintsfc #pnefc pic.twitter.com/nM1GBOF39o
— Dan George (@DanGeorgee) November 1, 2025
Southampton boss Will Still to BBC Sport:
“We’ve been a bit naive and conceded two really poor goals, we’ve been out-experienced today.
“We have bags and bags of talent in the dressing room but hard work beat talent today and we didn’t do enough to keep the ball out of our net.
“I know how it looks and how football works, as long as I’m here and people give me the opportunity to do so I will fight.”
Will Still, per Sky Sports:
“I know where we are in the league and what that looks like from the outside.
“I am not going to give up or feel sorry for myself. I will fight as long as I’m here. I’m not going to stop trying but I don’t think it is an instant fix either – you don’t come into a place like this and click your fingers.
“We don’t have to look further than our four walls. We have bags of talent in that dressing room.
“There is no point looking for excuses or saying ‘this isn’t fair’ or ‘isn’t nice’. We need to grow a pair and get on with it. It is a fragile environment.
“The players are struggling for confidence in games.”
Paul Heckingbottom speaking to BBC Radio Lancashire:
“I think if you could bottle that and take it away with you as an away performance we’d do that.
“We can be better with the ball we know that, but we were terrific, we created good chances and we were very, very good without the ball.
“We were particularly good in the second half and thoroughly deserved it, it takes a lot of work and a lot of discipline for the players to execute that and they were fantastic.”
Paul Heckingbottom, per Sky Sports:
“Everything impressed me about our performance. If we could bottle that up and take it with us, as an away performance, we would do that.
“We can be better with the ball but we were terrific. We created good chances and were very good without the ball, particularly in the second half. We thoroughly deserved it.
“We have some team out injured, nine of them – all good players. And one or two who played with knocks today and you would never have thought that. Credit to everyone.
“It would have been nice to have got the second goal earlier in the second half. We had our moments but I just thought we got a lot of things right.”
Chatted to Southampton boss Will Still in the tunnel after the game today for @5liveSport. A tough afternoon for #saintsfc as they drop to 21st with 1 win in last 12. pic.twitter.com/y5WEfCbifS
— Paul Gilmour (@pgilmourmedia) November 1, 2025
Twitter users reacted after St Mary’s turns toxic as Preston beat Southampton to pile more pressure on Will Still…
@MattAshley1: Joke of a club. Rotten to the core. Worst group of players/staff/owners I’ve seen. This isn’t the club I have supported all my life. Heart breaking. #Saintsfc
@AJPfx_: Cant believe i said it was a 10/10 window in the summer hahaha get f*cked 🤣 spors left us without a striker, without a goalkeeper, not a single good centre back at the club (out of 5), went from Rudoni and spertsyan to Azaz, and still a massive unmanageable squad #saintsfc
@MarcRReal: Will Stills coming into his sixth month with this club, and still doesnt know who his best 11 is, or a system that works. Changes every week and mid game but no improvement or progress made. Its slow, no intensity, no heart or fight (just like a Will Still interview) #saintsfc
@AdamDrodge: Seriously this is enough now. These players seriously don’t care. The board doesn’t care because they’d given still the players that all us fans could see we needed if they did. Yes the manager takes the fall but the issues are way deeper than that! Terminate contracts now.
@CorkyMorris: It’s alright sacking the manager, but the players & the board/owners are equally at fault. Zero ownership for this shit show from any of them. Embarrassing and unprofessional. £15m for Azaz is an absolute dereliction of duty.
@Benlarrrr: Surely Will Still after last weeks loss doesn’t survive this loss!? Surely he has to get the boot, caretaker for the midweek game new manager for the gamer against Wednesday at the weekend #Saintsfc
@lewissfc03: Our club is rotten. We’re miles away from what we should be and were. Still goes tonight but the biggest problem is sport republic. SELL UP AND GIVE US OUR CLUB BACK.
@Nickyp72: I’m done with this shit show. The only upside to yesterday was that we did hospitality. I got to stand in front of the directors and scream at them about the horrific job they’ve done. Get Still out of our club. I am so fucking done with this lot. I’ve had an ST for 15 years. 3 hour round journey.. I show more passion and commitment than the pricks who are playing for us right now. I’m not turning up next week The whole club is rotten.
@vibesniper37: When Hassenhutl came in, you felt the mood lift pretty quickly and results. RM also did a good job of this, just not feeling this with Still. Unfortunately. #saintsfc
@Matt_Whitton: 30 year affiliation with this club and I’ve never been so disgraced and unattached. Sports Republic have ruined this club and what it means to be a #SaintsFC fan
Will Still dropping a stinker to get sacked just in time for FM26 pic.twitter.com/IxbkHhcKuR
— Josh (@sfcjosh04) November 1, 2025
Plenty of chants like that from my position in the Northam… #saintsfc pic.twitter.com/pk82lTMTLT
— Char (@WhitemoreC) November 1, 2025
Here he comes again to make you sit when no one is behind you #saintsfc pic.twitter.com/J832oqJFYB
— Stuart Lark (@Larky78) November 1, 2025
Southampton’s league record under the ownership of Sport Republic:
154 matches
41 wins
32 draws
81 defeats
185 goals scored
279 goals conceded
2 relegations#saintsfc pic.twitter.com/EfvlaFdequ— SaintsExtra (@SaintsExtra) November 1, 2025
