Southampton's Fortress: Tonda Eckert's Home Revival

At St Mary’s these days, you can feel it before you see it.

The noise rolls down from the stands, the flags snap in the breeze and Southampton walk out knowing one thing: this place is theirs again.

Head coach Tonda Eckert doesn’t dress it up. For him, the club’s formidable home form in 2026 starts and ends with one word: connection.

From crisis to fortress

When the 33-year-old German was promoted from Saints’ U21s to replace the sacked Will Still in November 2025, the club were 21st in the Championship and drifting. The football was flat. The mood was worse.

“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. The bond between team and crowd had frayed. St Mary’s felt tense, not intimidating.

“Its 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.”

He didn’t walk into a club ready to adore him. He walked into a club that needed convincing.

So he set about earning 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.”

The results on home soil tell the story. Since Eckert took charge, Saints have collected 47 points at St Mary’s – the best home record in the Championship over that spell. This season, they’ve started with three wins from three in front of their own fans, turning a fragile ground into a fortress.

Spygate scars, stands still full

Eckert’s revival last season looked like it might end in a fairytale. Southampton surged into the Championship play-offs under his watch, only for the club to be thrown out after the Spygate scandal.

The fallout was ugly. Anger, disbelief, a sense of betrayal. This was the sort of episode that can empty a stadium for months.

Yet the stands stayed full.

Despite that fury, attendances have hovered around the 30,000 mark heading into the new campaign, keeping Saints among the top 20 supported clubs in the country. The supporters didn’t walk away. They showed up.

“Its 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.”

Small steps. Big shift.

“St Mary's just feels completely different than it did a year ago and that is just many, many things coming together.”

He knows exactly how central this is to the club’s ambitions.

“However, I do believe that to 'win' a season, you must play a successful season at home."

In other words: if you want promotion, you start by locking the gates at St Mary’s and refusing to give anything away.

Injury frustration for Jander

Not everything is rolling quite as smoothly.

As Southampton prepare for Saturday’s game against Bristol City, Eckert confirmed it has come “too early” for midfielder Caspar Jander.

The 23-year-old has yet to play a minute this season. A quad injury, picked up early in their first pre-season outing against National League side Eastleigh, has stalled his campaign before it even began.

The staff are cautious, but the plan is clear.

“We're going to push, so hopefully it's going to be some minutes against Wrexham (on 19 September). We had to delay a little bit, but I think he's on a good way now.”

Jander will have to wait for his own connection with St Mary’s. The rest of the squad already know what it feels like.

The question now is simple: if this bond between team and crowd holds, who will fancy coming to Southampton and breaking it?