Southampton head coach Tonda Eckert spoke of his delight at an overdue away success after seeing his side move into the Championship play-off zone with a 1-0 win at struggling Norwich.
The Saints have won all five of their home league games this season, but had only taken two points from four away fixtures before their visit to Carrow Road.
A hard-fought success in East Anglia put that one to bed and although Eckert has been happy enough with his side’s away form he was pleased to see it finally rewarded with three points.
“To be fair there have been some good performances away from home when we just needed to finish better, ” he said.
“Tonight we have put in another good performance and on this occasion we have got our reward. I am very happy for the boys because they worked very hard out there.
“Norwich are one of the best sides in the league at breaking you down and getting the ball behind you and it took us a while to grow into the game.
“But as it progressed I thought we got more control. I made more substitutions than I would have liked (fullbacks Ryan Manning and Zach Abbott were swapped at half-time after picking up yellow cards) but that was something I had to do because I didn’t want us to go down to 10 in the second half. In the end all the players involved did a good job tonight and I was very pleased with the result.”
An even game was decided by a 54th minute goal from Kuryu Matsuki, with the Japanese midfielder reacting quickest to stab home from close range after Dan Grimshaw had parried Caspar Jander’s fierce low drive.
Norwich could easily have gone ahead early on when Oscar Schwartau curled the over from a good position, while Jose Cordoba was denied by a instinctive goal-line block from Lewis Dobbin just after the Saints had gone ahead.
But Southampton had their chances too, with James Ward Prowse and Finn Azaz both going close.
Norwich head coach Philippe Clement said his side deserved to take something from the game as he reflected on a fourth successive league defeat.
“I certainly thought we deserved at least a point, the guys gave everything out there, working hard all the way through,” he said.
“We were defensively solid, in midfield also, and we had some good chances.
“The only thing that disappointed me was the last 20 minutes. We made five substitutes in the second half and some of the players who came on were not at the level we would like them to be.
“I know some of them are coming back from long-term injuries but we brought them on to try and make a difference to the game and it was not good enough.
“They need to work hard to get back to the right level and I will be speaking to them individually about that.”
Jovon Makama, Ante Crnac, Paris Maghoma, Sam Field and Anthony Musaba were the substitutes in question, with the first two currently working their way from long-term absences.
Clement added: “There was no lack of confidence from the players, no lack of energy either, but we need to work hard to get back to the levels we were showing last season.”
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