Adam Lallana Given Player-Assistant Manager Duties at Southampton
The former Liverpool midfielder will moonlight as interim manager Simon Rusk’s assistant following the departure of Ivan Juric at relegated Southampton.
It has been a no good terrible very bad season for Southampton, who have already been mathematically relegated with seven games to play in the 2024-25 season and have a small chance of going down in history as the worst side in the history of the Premier League.
Unsurprisingly, that has led to a coaching shuffle, with Ivan Juric parting ways with the club following the weekend’s results that confirmed relegation was a mathematical certainty and former U21 boss Simon Rusk taking over to see out the season—and to do so, he’ll get help from former Liverpool midfielder Adam Lallana.
The 36-year-old Lallana signed a one-year deal to join Southampton last summer from Brighton and has made 18 appearances in his second spell with his boyhood club. He will now serve as both player and assistant manager over their final seven games this season.
Lallana filled a player-assistant manager role briefly at Brighton during the transition to manager Roberto De Zerbi in 2022 and has worked as technical coach with Brighton and England’s U21 teams. He was on track to earn his coaching badges last year before delaying that to re-focus on his playing career.
It certainly appears, then, that Lallana is a player set to move into coaching full time when he does retire as a player—with the question now being if that will happen this summer and if he might then stick with Southampton as a coach in the Championship next season.
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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