FanSided World Football
·12 April 2025
Simon Rusk insists he isn't afraid to make different decisions than Ivan Juric

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·12 April 2025
Simon Rusk has openly confessed that he would not be biased towards certain Southampton starters and minutes in the Premier League are open for grabs for every squad player.
A couple of months ago, Southampton decided to promote Simon Rusk to sharpen the first-team's Premier League fixture preparations. Now, it's debatable whether the club saw Ivan Juric's sacking coming and decided to sent Rusk as a trainee-manager to try his hand in senior level coaching.
Nonetheless, one thing is for sure that Rusk must have been influenced a lot by Juric's match planning and can even have a bias towards the former's trusted starters. And any Saints fan can be forgiven for assuming that Rusk's starting eleven will be cut from the same cloth as that of Juric's.
But is it Southampton's best way to move forward? Honestly, there's no right and wrong about this idea and results is the only metric that can judge whether Rusk gets his match day picks spot on.
Currently, the match outcomes portrays that re-thinking the playing combinations is a must and Rusk isn't afraid to act accordingly.
With these words, Simon Rusk has invited every determined Saint to bring their starting candidacy to his notice. When Russell Martin left St. Mary's, a host of reserve players took the first-team leap under Ivan Juric's guidance.