How crack of the wit is giving Saints the whiphand

As Southampton fans dream of unlikely heights their idiosyncratic manager stresses the value of survival. Nick Townsend hears his philosophy

Pity the innocent, unwary interviewer. There should be a name for a fear of interviewing a certain red-haired Scot with a extraordinarily poisonous bite. Not so much arachnophobia as Strachnophobia, perhaps? TV reporters have been known to recoil at the prospect. What should be a simple case of eliciting a sound-bite can turn into something akin to being trapped in a cerebral maze. For we members of the print-media fraternity, he can be equally, damningly vexatious.

Consider his reaction on Thursday when one of the assembled media had the effrontery to raise the matter of Andrei Kanchelskis. Lest it had been forgotten, and it is an easy matter to do so, the Russian had been acquired on a free transfer from Rangers in the summer, having asked Gordon Strachan if he could train with the Saints to get himself fit. He had even inherited Matthew Le Tissier's vacant No 7 shirt. The former Manchester United player made his debut as a substitute against Everton, but since then has been as visible as an Isle of Wight ferry in a Solent fog.

The unfortunate interrogator waded into treacherous waters. "I read an article yesterday, saying that Andrei Kanchelskis had come to you and said he's unhappy with his role," he asks. "Is there any truth in that?"

Strachan snaps: "What is his role?"

"He's unhappy because he's not playing..."

Strachan cuts in: "What is his role?" The cat taunts mouse. "Tell me what his role is and I'll tell you if he's unhappy with it."

The questioner, by now rather warily: "He says he wants a starting place."

Strachan pauses for a second and then declares, patiently and almost dismissively, like a teacher coming to the end of a particularly stressful day: "Well, play better. And be fit."

That might have been it, but no. The relatively innocuous inquiry had evidently touched an exposed nerve. "You're discussing somebody who's only played 15 minutes... hey, you know what the best thing I've seen from a football club this week is? Jesper Gronkjaer at Chelsea." The winger had apparently taken responsibility in public for his own indifferent performance in a game.

"Absolutely fantastic," he adds. "He's no looked round and said, 'What's the excuse?' He's went, 'It's me.' When you get a player saying, 'It's not other players not giving him the ball, it's not the coach, it's not my wife's not happy here, it's not my dog's upset because I canna give him a good walk. It's me.' I think players have got to start thinking about that. Beautiful. Well done, Jesper Gronkjaer. It should be posted up on every dressing-room wall."

The words are issued so rapidly they merge into one continuous celtic machine-gun burst, but there is no misinterpreting them. In those few seconds Strachan has emphasised the kind of player he demands, and possibly how he has managed to fashion a team capable of rising to sixth in the Premiership – Southampton's highest position since 1988 – before yesterday's game at Middlesbrough with a sequence of three wins and three draws from six games. It is an achievement that secured him the Manager of the Month award.

Frankly, when it comes to a battle of wits with an abrasive red-head you'd rather be confronted by Anne Robinson. You imagine it's the same with any of the players who challenge him. The Scot's canny eye soon spots the weakest link. You're with Strachan, or for yourself. If the latter, you'd better get used to suffering from that chronic irritation, Substitutes' Splinter.

Incoming players are rigorously checked to ensure they are not susceptible to that condition brought on by too long on the bench. Saints have recently strengthened their limited numerical resources – Strachan has barely more than 15 outfield players to choose from – with the Argentinian Frederico Arias. "We can thank Terry Cooper [the former Leeds United full-back who recommended him to Southampton] for that," enthuses Strachan. "We told him that if the lad's coming he's got to have the northern European mentality because, for some, the culture can be too much, the training can be too much, the system can be different to what he's used to over there. But this lad is a breath of fresh air.

"In the conversations I've had with him he's never mentioned the word 'netto' [as opposed to being paid gross salary] yet, he's not mentioned 'house', 'car', 'free flights', everything you usually get in these deals. All he talks about is being a good footballer. It's only fair if the lads [those already at the club] have been fighting hard and scrapping and doing incredible amounts of training and hours that I bring in people of the same ilk."

Strachan's idiosyncratic humour is to an extent a defence mechanism, a device which helps to extract the tension from the most weighty of responsibilities, management at the elite level. The wee man can reel off the one-liners like a stand-up at the Edinburgh Festival. "Brad Friedel was unbelievable against us today. I would na' be surprised if he got changed in a telephone box before the game," he quipped after Southampton's fixture against Blackburn. But he can be vitriolic, too. Strachan's abrupt, straightforward style is not to everyone's liking. Recently he was voted 49th in a poll to find the "Grate Briton", two ahead of Margaret Thatcher.

There are undoubtedly a few who find him too smart by half. In the past they included his former manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who in his autobiography says of Strachan's abortive transfer move to Lens: "I decided that this man could not be trusted an inch... I wouldn't want to expose my back to him in a hurry." Yet, in a world where platitudes are cast over the side of trawlers, for the consumption of the "seagull" media, like Eric Cantona's sardines, the Scot, with his razor, sometimes cruel wit, is a refreshing contrast, if not always appreciated. As Strachan himself admits ruefully, a Frenchman conjuring such an image is called a philosopher. "I'm just a Scottish bum talking crap."

It is Thursday lunchtime at St Mary's. His players, woolly hats pulled down tight over ears, are preparing for a trip into the New Forest, the only location today where the ground will not jeopardise sound limbs. The pitch at the stadium is frozen; so too, the club's Staplewood training complex. "The training ground's knackered, so the lads have to go running in the New Forest, scaring the life out of the wildlife," he says. "That becomes a real problem because when you do that the animals leave a lot of stuff behind. You have to keep dodging that as we're running." He extols the virtues of training in the New Forest. "It's beautiful out there. There's cattle there as well, you know." He does a farmyard impression. Moos, boos and grunts. A mischievous thought enters his head: "I thought I was back at Coventry."

It was a far from agreeable conclusion to his managerial apprenticeship at Highfield Road which had begun in 1997, two years after he had joined the then Premiership club following a distinguished playing career with Aberdeen, Manchester United, Leeds and Scotland. For a time, he gave respiration to a declining patient, but ultimately Coventry's Premiership life expired. Early in the following season he was sacked. For six weeks he was out of work before the Southampton chairman, Rupert Lowe, came calling. Strachan should probably have quit Coventry when he was still regarded as a saviour, not a stultifier. He concedes as much. "You can only stay at a place so long and then it's like David Bowie, you have to re-invent yourself."

Strachan has done so with conspicuous success at a club which, partly because of his contribution and also because of its increased stature in the game, saw through the construction of a 32,000-capacity stadium to replace the decrepit Dell. Southampton are suddenly a team to be feared, not patronised. Europe, not avoidance of the Nationwide League, has become the focus for their fans.

Yet the manager himself is wary of establishing precise objectives. "Mine is just to keep surviving. Have a job this time next year," maintains the Edinburgh-born manager, who arrived at St Mary's in October 2001. "You may laugh, but if you've been sacked that's your target. If you keep your job you've done well. I think in the first five, six, seven years in management your job is to survive. If you can pass that you've brokered a decent career in management and can go on longer."

If anything troubles the Saints faithful, it is the size of the squad. Rotation is an alien concept. Yet Strachan believes that a dearth of choice may actually be beneficial to his squad. "Everybody is close and I don't have too many options," he says. "So, I don't get too confused. But I'm not one to change systems anyway. I don't think I've changed it since I came here yet we've gone from a team that's getting beat to one that's winning every game. It all boils down to how many tackles and headers you can win. It's as simple as that sometimes. Then you can go on and play your system. I look at people like Arsène Wenger, Alex Ferguson. They've been playing 4-4-2 for ever. It's good players that make a system."

Under his stewardship, the number of those at St Mary's are increasing, both in terms of astute foreign purchases like the French winger Fabrice Fernandes to the continued progress of the former Blackburn striker, James Beattie. But just as crucially, Strachan has been able to utilise the versatility of players, with Rory Delap moving from left-back to central midfield, where the previous occupant Chris Marsden has transferred to left midfield. Fernandes, by instinct a left-sided player, has switched to the right. Such redeployment of personnel has allowed Marsden to forge a potent partnership with the England defender Wayne Bridge. The cumulative result is testament to Strachan's expertise.

Yet he will accept that it is one particular factor, the rediscovery of Beattie's goal supply line from the midfield refinery, that has turned potential into success. "We actually played some wonderful football at the beginning of the season, but couldn't score," says the 45-year-old Strachan. "Our principles have not changed but James Beattie started to get regularly on the scoresheet and we're now a far better club because of it. There's nae magic to it.

"We obviously have to give him the platform to score goals, and that means making chances. What fans want to see are shots, crosses, headers and tackles, because that determines your chances of winning the game, whatever your system is. If you're not getting that, whatever you're doing doesn't work. I call that propaganda football." He mimics a posh purist: " 'Oh, they play a lovely passing game'. Trouble is they don't get a shot at goal and don't get a cross in. That's not football."

Beattie is now a convincing England prospect, a possibility regarded with a certain ambivalence by Strachan who would rather the striker concentrated all his energies on club football; yet earlier in the season he was dropped. "It could have blown up in my face," the manager admits. "You could have had someone who sulked or went off in a huff, but fortunately I was lucky that I had a player who responded."

In essence, that explains Southampton's advancement along the Premiership's corridors of power. Strachan has managed, by use of wit rather than whip, to harness a squad united – with perhaps just the odd exception like Kanchelskis – by a common cause. The question is: can it prove enduring? "I believe a team like us can pop into that top six every now and then. How long you can stay there depends on a lot of things," he says. "But if we can keep up to this standard till the end of the season we can continue this conversation then."

One thing is certain about the man who has prospered by being sent from Coventry: it will be nothing if not stimulating. Rather like his team.