7:10am Thursday 2nd July 2009
Mark Wotte is now officially Saints manager – and hasn’t given up all hope of keeping Kelvin Davis at the club.
With the prospect of the first team having no coaches left to train them this morning with Wotte’s contract having reverted to academy director, the club moved quickly to keep him on.
Nobody can be offered new deals at this point in time but Wotte has seen his previous contract amended.
That means he is now officially Saints boss on a 12 month rolling deal – meaning if a new owner of the club didn’t want him in charge he’d be owed a year at whatever salary he now earns to be paid off.
He will continue to be assisted by Michael Svensson who is out of contract and will continue to work for nothing for now.
That is in the hope that a takeover will be completed by the end of the week and Svensson will then be signed up.
As for Davis, he has had a medical at West Ham but if a Saints takeover were to happen quickly then it is still possible that he could remain at St Mary’s.
Wotte said: “I asked Kelvin about his situation and he has almost signed for West Ham.
“I hope the takeover will be done before Kelvin joins West Ham.”
Speaking of his own position he added: “They offered me the chance to be manager, I slept on it and decided to accept it.
“We have to wait for the takeover to be completed and then I will continue to be manager like last season with Michael Svensson.
“I had an existing contract so we decided to change the job and I made some arrangements for this job and I am very happy to be in charge of the first team like it was in the last four or five months.
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