Will Still on Sky Sports presenter girlfriend's illness: I had to come home

Telegraph

6 days ago

Will Still recalls last season: 'I was going to games and travelling back and forth and thinking 'I shouldn't be stood on this training pitch. I don't even know why I'm here',' he admits.
Not because he did not want to coach the French Ligue 1 side Lens. And not because he had become disillusioned with the game.
No, it was because Still's partner Emma Saunders was in England with serious health issues. The Sky Sports presenter was fighting to recover from encephalitis, a brain infection, having already been diagnosed with thyroid cancer last year.
'I needed to be closer to home and ultimately Emma is home,' Still says. The situation played a significant role in him leaving Lens and European football and finally taking a job in England as Southampton's new head coach.
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Still was born and raised in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium, where his English parents moved for his father's job with Shell. Still may regard himself as English but he has never worked or lived here beyond a spell studying at Myerscough College in Lancashire when he was 17.
'I am English, my parents are English. But you notice when you feel you've been away for 32 years!' Still says.
It was in Preston that he learnt English football phrases such as 'man on' and got a taste for wanting to return. 'By the end of it, I was like, 'God, English football is the place to be. It's where the most things happen',' Still says. 'And we were playing Stockport reserves and people turned up to watch that game – like a lot of people. It's like 'why are you coming to watch a bunch of college players playing Stockport reserves?''
Remarkably, as he mentioned, Still is only 32. He has however already forged a reputation as one of Europe's most exciting young coaches with an extraordinary list of achievements. He was an assistant in the Belgian top flight at Standard Liège aged 22 and a head coach in the Belgian second division at 24, becoming the youngest ever at a professional club in Europe. At 30 he was the head coach of Reims in France – the youngest in the top five European leagues – and then he led Lens to eighth last season.
'It was tough. I'm not going to pretend that it wasn't difficult,' he says of the last campaign, given that he was juggling helping Emma with leading a big club that had sold some of their best players.
It helped that his two brothers, Edward and Nicolas, were on his coaching staff. 'I was lucky that Ed and Nico were there; that I had my brothers and they knew exactly what was going on. I knew Ed has been a head coach and could just do it,' Still says.
'And the first bit in September, with the cancer, it was like, 'Will just go away, you shouldn't be here'. But I kept it to two days a week. If there was a day off on a Monday I would stay the Tuesday and come back on the Wednesday to prepare the game. But I won't miss the Eurostar! As good as their service is!'
Just how emotionally demanding was it?
'I think what was difficult was not saying anything. At the start I was like 'no, I don't want to say anything. I'll tell it to the players, but I don't want people talking about it'. But actually that's not the right thing to do,' Still says.
'As soon as you do open up people go 'I'll give you a bit of time and space to be just a human being'. And you just realise that there are much more important things than football. Football's great and it pays the bills and it's what I love doing. But those first three or four weeks – the two weeks the first time and the two weeks the next time – it's not that important.
'It was draining and then it was an honest conversation with Emma when I had to say 'I actually need to be at the football club as well because it is my job and people are paying me a lot of money to do it'.
'Obviously she understood. So, you're torn between 'I know, I've got to do this – and I know you're there'. I just tried to do my best and honestly finishing eighth in Ligue 1 last season having sold all the players was one of my proudest achievements and doing it with my brothers was pretty special. Draining – but I grew as a person.'
Thankfully, Saunders is recovering and Still reveals that she has now returned to Sky. 'She's getting a lot better. There's still the odd thing here and there that aren't quite right,' he says. 'And just the fact of being able to go home, to her, means she feels better about it and she's more in control. So, she's getting there.'
'There is a possibility to build something here'
Even so, joining Southampton was ultimately a career choice – even if he has had to do so without his brothers as Nico, now assistant manager of Belgian club Gent, has just become a father and Ed's wife is due to give birth. He is an assistant at Anderlecht.
'My gut feeling takes a lot of ownership of what I do and it was just like 'this feels right'. I could see myself being here for a good period of time and trying to do things well,' Still says.
'I'd also said that when I do come back to England, I really want it to be the right people, the right environment, the right players, the right project. And not in an arrogant way.
'I could have come back last year [Sunderland were among the clubs after him]. I could have come back before that but it was 'it's not quite there, it's not quite ready'.'
Southampton were relegated to the Championship in their first season back in the top flight, with just 12 points – only one more than the worst ever total recorded in the division. There is work to do. Not least in rebuilding a shell-shocked squad.
'We need to get back to the Premier League. In a realistic way we want to do it this year. I've been told if it's not this year, then it probably has to be next year,' Still explains. 'But that's what I want. I want to be competitive. I want to be challenging myself, challenging people around me. I was looking at footage yesterday of when Poch [Mauricio Pochettino] was here. That was a seriously good Southampton team.
'And there is potential to do that again. To build something not just over this year but over the next two or three years and the possibility and opportunity is there.'
What made him look at that particular Southampton side? 'What Saints fans want to see, what got them excited, what style of football, what brand of player. And with the transfer window still being open, we can still adjust that and go to certain profiles,' Still says.
'Players are important. But the people themselves are important too. I don't want massive egos or lazy footballers to come in just because it's Southampton.'
His message to the squad has been equally direct. 'Enjoy it. Forget the past. I know how difficult that was and you can still see it, feel it,' Still says. 'Details like in games where things go wrong, because things are going to go wrong. You see the sort of [sharp intake of breathe] and how it asphyxiates people. And I'd rather be totally transparent and honest than say: 'Oh, it's OK'.
'Well, it's not OK. If it's not OK, you can say it's not OK. And that's what we are trying to install, trying to get right. But I do realise where we are. That page is there and we just want to sort of flick it that way and start the new season.'
'Not many people in Belgium are ginger'
Man-management is key. So where did such a young coach learn to deal with that? 'The first year in Reims it was 13 or 14 different nationalities in the team,' Still says. 'So, over the years I've sort of been exposed to different people, cultures, looks... I'm not the best, I've got f---ing ginger hair!
'Growing up in a family with five kids was a start to that. And being number four… My parents said it was: 'Oh, nothing. The last one's the golden kid. And number four, you... happen!'
'Again, growing up in Belgium, not many people are ginger and speak English. So, you have to adapt to people. You have to try to learn what they are like, what they like, what they talk about, what music they listen to; to be able to integrate into their world.
'I've always stuck out like a sore thumb. So, you try and make people just treat you as normal. I'll do that and then people think: 'Oh, you're all right.' And I know with the world the way it is, people just expect it to happen. And it's like 'oh, social media told us that you can do it'. Well, yeah, but there's a bit more to it than that.'
That is partly in reference to Still's backstory which has lit up social media over the years. He dreamed of being a centre-half as a kid but the highest level he achieved was in the reserve team at Mons in Belgium. However, he was determined to work in the sport, at any level, with the computer game Football Manager becoming an outlet, even if his use of it has become overblown.
'I know people get excited about the Football Manager story. I wasn't quite sitting behind my computer and then dumped on to a pitch then was really good at it!' he says.
'The question back then was: 'Do you play video games?' I was, like, 'of course I play video games. Everyone plays video games'. They then asked 'what do you play? Fifa? Football Manager?' And it just went from there. I'm just a normal person.'
"I just got branded the football manager, who learnt it all on Football Manager" 😅
Will Still talks about how he learnt his trade as a manager 👇 pic.twitter.com/vptXT1PScG
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 21, 2025
He is also, he admits, a very bad loser. 'The 24 hours after I lose, Emma hates it. We're trying to get to a stage where she asks the right questions and she doesn't just say 'Are you all right?' Of course, I'm not all right. I lost a game of football!' Still says.
'I'm still working on that bit. The hardest thing is talking to the press. People want answers: 'Why have you lost?' 'I don't know, give me five minutes'… even in a friendly. We lost to Espanyol. It was winding the s--- out of me. We've lost it on an individual mistake and then a penalty that never should have been. I know exactly what it is, but knowing it irritates me even more.'
'The French never understood cricket'
It raises the question: how does he switch off? 'I tell you what – and this is the one thing that the French never understood: watching cricket. I love cricket. I'd love to be able to play again,' he says, having represented Belgium Under-16s – with his brother Ed – as a fast bowler.
Even so it cannot compete with football – and Still's intense love of the game and determination to succeed.
'I love stupid things like the boots and the kit. And you know, when I got here, you get three sets of kit, and you always look at it and you start thinking … 'new kit day, isn't it?'' he says, laughing ahead of the Championship kick-off on Saturday at home to newly promoted Wrexham.
'Just the grass being wet. It's got cones on it. It's beautiful. Unbelievable,' Still adds, wistfully. 'And that moment when the players have walked out on to the pitch and you can hear the crowd but you can't quite hear them and the light then appears and you think 'oh yeah, here we go. This is unbelievable'. I can't even describe… and I don't know why… it's just always been there.'