Ruben Selles
Saints are bottom of the Premier League and facing relegation after recording zero wins in their last nine games under manager Selles.
The Spaniard – who was hired over the summer to be assistant to Ralph Hasenhuttl – replaced sacked Nathan Jones in February, after his own run of one win in eight league matches.
Saints were already well bottom when Selles was appointed but despite two wins in his first three he has so far failed to improve their immediate prospects.
Selles was asked if he would like to remain at Saints for the future when chatting with talkSPORT,
Ruben Selles added: “Yeah, absolutely, I said that I want to be here for the next 10 years. At the level it is Southampton and the people have given me too much love and confidence in my job that I want to give all of these things back, I want to be here long term and if it’s in the Premier League next year that is better than if it is not. What I am not doing right now is winning enough football matches, but sometimes the result is a consequence of a few things – a crossbar and out or an offside by two inches that takes one point. I am showing what I am and what I can do, managing a team in the best league in the world. We are showing for moments the football we practice and in some games how competitive can be. The mindset is it doesn’t matter who is in front of us, we can beat them. If it is enough or not it is not for me to decide, that is for the owners to evaluate.”
With relegation to the Championship likely, Selles accepts that dropping to the second division would likely spark a club rebuild undertaken by owners Sport Republic.
Ruben Selles said: “When a club gets relegated the rebuild is always going to be there, I think the club should do it in the best way possible. They need to start a project where everything needs to show fresh, direct and very honest so the rebuild will be there. That is for the club to decide how big it is but of course, it is not like keeping the project as it is now.”
Selles also accepted that his team have lost in must-win games over the last week, after a 1-0 defeat at home to AFC Bournemouth and a 3-1 loss despite taking the lead at Newcastle United.
Ruben Selles said: “We have been in the win-at-all-costs situation right now with Bournemouth and Newcastle but of course now there is less games to play in front of us. The situation is starting to be critical in those terms, so of course we are going to go there and try to win the game. We have shown how competitive we can be but need to be more robust for 95 minutes. It is a game that we must win. We had some momentum at the beginning and there were a couple of times that we were competing to get the momentum back but we didn’t get it and it went straight to the other side.”
However, Selles insists his focus is on nothing but the game ahead of them – a Bank Holiday Monday trip to relegation rivals Nottingham Forest.
Ruben Selles said: “I’m very forward-oriented so we have 12 points to play for and we have the chance against Nottingham Forest to be straight back into the race to be in the Premier League. That is all my focus is on, I’m not focused on more than one thing at a time. I know the situation, it has been the situation from the very beginning. I need to have a team that works well every day and prepare for Nottingham Forest, I can’t say more than that because we still have possibilities to do it and we are going to fight for it with everything.”
