TONDA ECKERT PRAISED his players’ never-say-die attitude as Southampton secured their first win of the season with a dramatic 3-1 victory over Stoke.
With the game heading for a draw, a late goal from Divin Mubama and a Ryan Manning penalty gave Saints a crucial victory as they strive to quickly overturn their four-point deduction.
They led through an early goal from Cyle Larin before Ethan Galbraith deservedly levelled for Stoke, who have now lost their opening two games of the season.
To cap a miserable day for Stoke boss Mark Robins, Svante Ingelsson was also sent off for a second booking after bringing down Samuel Edozie for the penalty.
The big news before kick-off was the omission of Taylor Harwood-Bellis from the Southampton squad amid a failed £18million bid from Aston Villa during the week.
Eckert said: “I think he’s left absolutely everything here for this club in the last season. He loves this club so much. He loves his team-mates so much,” said Eckert.
“And then at the same time you have an offer coming in. You have some thoughts about how it is to play Champions League football. I think if you find yourself in that position, it’s not easy.”
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Cardiff City boss Brian Barry-Murphy saw his side pegged back twice to draw 2-2 at Derby County and the Cork native promised to make defensive reinforcements ahead of Tuesday’s Carabao Cup tie against Norwich City.
The Bluebirds were without four injured centre-backs at Pride Park, with Gabriel Osho the latest to join a crippling casualty list already including Dylan Lawlor, Calum Chambers and Will Fish.
That meant Barry-Murphy was forced to play Perry Ng and former Republic of Ireland Under-21 international Joel Bagan at the heart of his defence and, despite their valiant efforts, Rams’ pair Carlton Morris and Bobby Clark were able to cancel out Cian Ashford and Yousef Salech’s goals for the visitors.
It is a frailty the Cardiff boss will now look to address in the transfer market.
“We have four players injured in that position, which is pretty unusual so, fingers crossed, something will happen soon and I’d expect to have somebody in before Tuesday – even though the players we put in there did a great job and I was proud and pleased with their performance,” he said.
Senior Ireland international Jack Moylan once again started for Cardiff and Barry-Murphy was pleased with his players performed. “We tried to win by being as aggressive as possible because I thought the best form of defence was attack and we needed to get on the front foot. The players did that and I’m just disappointed that we didn’t get the win.
“We were very slick going forward and I wanted to keep the ball for as long as possible. We created dangerous chances, especially in the first half, and they have a really good team and a good manager and create situations that are difficult to defend, so you have to defend the box well.
“We had an incredible following and the scenes at the end were great, so I felt we had no choice but to go for the win for them, but we also showed maturity not to lose the game.”
Elsewhere in the Championship, Nathan Jones piled praise on his Charlton players after they won 2-1 at West Ham to maintain their perfect start to the new season.
Charlton had been tipped to be one of the Championship’s strugglers but have taken maximum points, as well as setting up a Carabao Cup second-round tie at Tottenham.
Lloyd Jones and Tyreece Campbell, on the scoresheet in the opening league match of the season, put the Addicks into a 2-0 lead just before the hour mark.
Centre-back Jones produced an acrobatic finish from Sonny Carey’s long throw in the seventh minute while Campbell ruthlessly beat Hammers keeper Mads Hermansen after Konstantinos Mavropanos had the ball nicked off him by Miles Leaburn.
Joel Piroe, making his debut after joining on loan from Leeds, had cut the deficit in the 75th minute for West Ham, but Taty Castellanos struck the post with a penalty awarded in stoppage time after Conor Coventry was ruled to have blocked Lewis Orford’s shot with his arm.
West Ham have not won their last 10 derbies, losing nine of them, but Hammers head coach Nuno Espirito Santo defended the decision for Castellanos to take the spot-kick instead of Jarrod Bowen.
He said: “We trust Taty to take the penalties. I don’t know (if he will take the next one), we will have to decide.
“We started badly again. We got punished from a situation where we know Charlton create problems. It became much harder but we still created a lot of situations but were not accurate enough in the boxes. Football is this – to be accurate in the offensive box and we have to defend much better.
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Ryan Manning scores in a dramatic first win of the season for Southampton
TONDA ECKERT PRAISED his players’ never-say-die attitude as Southampton secured their first win of the season with a dramatic 3-1 victory over Stoke.
With the game heading for a draw, a late goal from Divin Mubama and a Ryan Manning penalty gave Saints a crucial victory as they strive to quickly overturn their four-point deduction.
They led through an early goal from Cyle Larin before Ethan Galbraith deservedly levelled for Stoke, who have now lost their opening two games of the season.
To cap a miserable day for Stoke boss Mark Robins, Svante Ingelsson was also sent off for a second booking after bringing down Samuel Edozie for the penalty.
The big news before kick-off was the omission of Taylor Harwood-Bellis from the Southampton squad amid a failed £18million bid from Aston Villa during the week.
Eckert said: “I think he’s left absolutely everything here for this club in the last season. He loves this club so much. He loves his team-mates so much,” said Eckert.
“And then at the same time you have an offer coming in. You have some thoughts about how it is to play Champions League football. I think if you find yourself in that position, it’s not easy.”
Cardiff City boss Brian Barry-Murphy saw his side pegged back twice to draw 2-2 at Derby County and the Cork native promised to make defensive reinforcements ahead of Tuesday’s Carabao Cup tie against Norwich City.
The Bluebirds were without four injured centre-backs at Pride Park, with Gabriel Osho the latest to join a crippling casualty list already including Dylan Lawlor, Calum Chambers and Will Fish.
That meant Barry-Murphy was forced to play Perry Ng and former Republic of Ireland Under-21 international Joel Bagan at the heart of his defence and, despite their valiant efforts, Rams’ pair Carlton Morris and Bobby Clark were able to cancel out Cian Ashford and Yousef Salech’s goals for the visitors.
It is a frailty the Cardiff boss will now look to address in the transfer market.
“We have four players injured in that position, which is pretty unusual so, fingers crossed, something will happen soon and I’d expect to have somebody in before Tuesday – even though the players we put in there did a great job and I was proud and pleased with their performance,” he said.
Senior Ireland international Jack Moylan once again started for Cardiff and Barry-Murphy was pleased with his players performed. “We tried to win by being as aggressive as possible because I thought the best form of defence was attack and we needed to get on the front foot. The players did that and I’m just disappointed that we didn’t get the win.
“We were very slick going forward and I wanted to keep the ball for as long as possible. We created dangerous chances, especially in the first half, and they have a really good team and a good manager and create situations that are difficult to defend, so you have to defend the box well.
“We had an incredible following and the scenes at the end were great, so I felt we had no choice but to go for the win for them, but we also showed maturity not to lose the game.”
Elsewhere in the Championship, Nathan Jones piled praise on his Charlton players after they won 2-1 at West Ham to maintain their perfect start to the new season.
Charlton had been tipped to be one of the Championship’s strugglers but have taken maximum points, as well as setting up a Carabao Cup second-round tie at Tottenham.
Lloyd Jones and Tyreece Campbell, on the scoresheet in the opening league match of the season, put the Addicks into a 2-0 lead just before the hour mark.
Centre-back Jones produced an acrobatic finish from Sonny Carey’s long throw in the seventh minute while Campbell ruthlessly beat Hammers keeper Mads Hermansen after Konstantinos Mavropanos had the ball nicked off him by Miles Leaburn.
Joel Piroe, making his debut after joining on loan from Leeds, had cut the deficit in the 75th minute for West Ham, but Taty Castellanos struck the post with a penalty awarded in stoppage time after Conor Coventry was ruled to have blocked Lewis Orford’s shot with his arm.
West Ham have not won their last 10 derbies, losing nine of them, but Hammers head coach Nuno Espirito Santo defended the decision for Castellanos to take the spot-kick instead of Jarrod Bowen.
He said: “We trust Taty to take the penalties. I don’t know (if he will take the next one), we will have to decide.
“We started badly again. We got punished from a situation where we know Charlton create problems. It became much harder but we still created a lot of situations but were not accurate enough in the boxes. Football is this – to be accurate in the offensive box and we have to defend much better.
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