Manning enjoyed "nostalgic" midfield cameo
Ryan Manning said he was “buzzing” to roll back the years by returning to the position where he started his career last night.
The Irishman moved to England from Galway United in his homeland back in 2015, spending most of his days as a QPR player operating in midfield, before transitioning to left-back where he excelled under Russell Martin at Swansea.
Manning impressed early on in last night’s friendly at Oxford, creating a couple of chances with some pinpoint passes, but Saints ultimately fell to a 2-0 defeat, their first loss of pre-season.
“I started my career there at QPR, in midfield, played 70-80 games in there, so it was a bit nostalgic stepping back in there fully, rather than dropping in off the left, but I enjoyed it,” he said.
“With the manager, if he asks you to play somewhere, you just have to adapt to it. I think it shows how, with this style of football, you have to have an understanding of how everyone plays every different position.
“We did the small-sided [games] yesterday and he just said to me he thinks it would suit me and thinks I could do it, so I was buzzing all last night thinking about stepping back into midfield again!
“I enjoyed stepping in there and seeing the game from a little bit of a different perspective, having to look out for different things and worry about different runners, but I enjoyed the 60 minutes.”
Manning was briefly a Premier League player at QPR, in his teenage years, but is yet to play a game in the top flight, fuelling his desire to feature against Newcastle in Saints’ opening fixture on Saturday 17th August.
“It’s been a tough but enjoyable three weeks,” he said of pre-season so far. “Today was probably a bit of a dampener on it in terms of each game we were getting better and results were positive, so it’s probably brought us down to earth a little bit – if we’re off it a little bit, it shows a lot in the game.
“I came back for pre-season trying to be the best version of myself after last year when I signed so late and the season started so quickly, I didn’t really get a pre-season, so I wanted to try and get as much in the tank as I could.
“I’m so excited for it. We’ve got a tough start away at St James’ Park, but us being us, we’ve just got to go and implement our style of football wherever we go and show how good we can be, and prove that with the style of football in the Premier League, we can mix it with the best.”
