It seems that new Saints manager Will Still prefers to do much of his pre season work on the training ground rather than playing matches, with just 5 matches announced 3 of them are behind closed doors.

Will Still has a lot of work to get through this summer and a lot of wheat from the chafe to be separated and it seems that he want's to get his squad around to his way of thinking behind closed doors rather than in public.

Saints seem to have just 5 pre season games scheduled for the 5 week period from 5th July until the season's opener against Wrexham on 9th August.

But only Saturday's opening friendly at Eastleigh and the final game against Brighton at St Mary's will be open for Saints fans.

In between those two games they have two closed doors friendlies at Staplewood against Gillingham on an undisclosed date and also fellow Sport Republic club Valencienes on Friday July 18th that is followed by a game behind closed doors at Espanyol on Saturday 26th July.

So a rather sparse pre season fixture list and only two games the fans will be able to see.

I would suspect that there may be another 1 or 2 low key games at the training ground, but it is strange that there will be potentially only two games that will be genuine competitive friendlies that will be a test.

So it seems that this is the way that Will Still likes to work, he wants to do all the work in private and in the main save it for the opening day of the Championship.

All Photos Via Reuters

underweststand added 19:32 - Jul 14 It maybe a disappointment for fans, but logically not a bad move as we are sure to see a lot of new names in the final first team squad, and a few departures in the meantime. The comments / criticism that followed the Eastleigh fixture already started some negative responses from some people, but clearly it was a 45 minute practice game for many in order that Will S. could make assessments after two weeks of pre-season routine training. Any poor reactions from the the fanbase would only create a lot of negativity before the season even starts, and regardless of the "results" of these kickabouts.. Will and his staff will make their own decisions about planning without getting bad press for any poor performances from individuals who most likely will be leaving the club in the short term. I'm sure we would all enjoy seeing our players in any sort of game, but it would be equally discouraging to see substandard showings in what are basically just "meaningless games" before the League action really starts.

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