Southampton's Home Revival Under Eckert: Building Connection
Tonda Eckert walks into St Mary’s these days and feels it. Noise, belief, a crackle in the air that simply wasn’t there when he took over.
Back in November 2025, Southampton were 21st in the Championship and drifting. Will Still had gone, the mood was flat, and the club turned to a 33-year-old coach promoted from the U21s with more questions than guarantees.
Since then, St Mary’s has turned into a fortress.
Saints have collected 47 points at home under Eckert – the best record in the Championship over that period – and have opened the new campaign with three straight home wins. For a club that looked broken less than a year ago, the turnaround has been sharp and loud.
“You know the condition the club was in when I came in and you know the condition our supporters were in the moment I came in,” Eckert told BBC Radio Solent. “It’s not easy to play home games if you don’t have that connection. And rightly so, there was not that connection at that very moment for a variety of things going on.”
The disconnect was obvious. Results were poor, trust was frayed, and the stands felt more tense than supportive. Eckert knew he couldn’t simply ask for backing; he had to earn it.
“Then you need to earn that right to connect again to the supporters, to the city, because it means so much more, the football, to the city of Southampton,” he said.
Last season, the German guided Saints into the Championship play-offs, only for the club to be thrown out after the Spygate scandal. The fallout was fierce. Anger poured out online, frustration spilled onto phone-ins, and the sense of injustice mixed with embarrassment.
But the supporters did not walk away.
Despite the controversy, attendances have held at around the 30,000 mark going into this season, keeping Southampton among the top 20 best-supported clubs in the country. St Mary’s, once anxious and subdued, has started to feel like a home ground again rather than a stage for grievances.
“It’s not one thing that you change,” Eckert said. “There are so many small steps that you need to take to earn the trust and build on a connection and build a relationship back up.
“St Mary’s just feels completely different than it did a year ago and that is just many, many things coming together.
“However, I do believe that to ‘win’ a season, you must play a successful season at home.”
That belief has shaped the way his team plays in front of their own fans: front-foot, aggressive, unapologetically ambitious. The atmosphere has followed.
Injury blow for Jander
Not everything is falling perfectly into place, though. Ahead of Saturday’s game against Bristol City, Eckert confirmed that the match will come “too early” for midfielder Caspar Jander.
The 23-year-old is still waiting for his first appearance of the season after suffering a quad injury early in Southampton’s opening pre-season fixture against National League side Eastleigh.
“We’re going to push, so hopefully it’s going to be some minutes against Wrexham (on 19 September),” Eckert said. “We had to delay a little bit, but I think he’s on a good way now.”
Jander’s absence has forced Eckert to shuffle his midfield options, but with St Mary’s roaring again and the home record surging, the head coach knows exactly where this campaign has to be built: on that connection he fought to restore.
