Southampton boss George Burley insists working with Sir Clive Woodward offers "potential, not problems".

The Ipswich and Derby manager was appointed by the Championship club on Christmas Eve after leaving Hearts at the end of October.

And Burley admitted the presence of the former England and Lions rugby union coach as director of football at the St Mary's Stadium "would have put a lot of people off".

He told the Sunday Mail: "With Clive being so high profile, there have been negatives associated with him and Southampton.

"But I looked at the club and the players, the support base, a good academy and saw potential, not problems.

"He is there to help and we speak every day.

"He is sitting his coaching badges and one day he knows he may want to get more involved, but, at the moment, I do all the coaching and he's looking and learning.

"He picks my brains, he listens in at meetings with players. But they're my choice as players."

Burley admits there were difficulties working with majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov at Tynecastle due to his lack of English.

But he insists team selection was his purely his choice.

Burley added: "People asked me when I came to Southampton if I was worried about the presence of Sir Clive Woodward as the director of football and whether I felt my job was safe. But it doesn't bother me.

"The roles we have are clearly stated. All the training, all players coming and going are my decision which wasn't the case at Hearts.

"When you're leaving a club at the top of the league, people are always going to ask questions.

"But there were many things happening people knew about.

"Even the press were making fun of players turning up I didn't even know about.

"Everyone involved in Scottish football knew it wasn't right. There were only two players - Ibrahim Tall and Samuel Camazzola - who turned up on my doorstep unannounced. All the rest were my players.

"Once they were there though, I wasn't under pressure to play them. I picked the team - the choice was mine."