Eckert: Crowd lifted us when we needed it most

Saints were coming off the back of a heavy defeat at home to West Ham in the Carabao Cup, and then found themselves behind early on to a Millwall team who had won all four of their league and cup games ahead of their trip to the south coast.

But Eckert felt the backing of the home crowd and saw his players respond with their best performance of the season to date to hit back with five unanswered goals.

Cyle Larin scored twice, including a sublime second to put Saints 4-1 up just after the hour mark, before Tom Fellows added the gloss with his long-awaited first goal for the club on a day when centre-back Keven Schlotterbeck made his Saints debut and former skipper James Ward-Prowse made an emotional return to St Mary’s.

“It doesn’t happen too often that we score five goals, but the support was outstanding, especially when we needed it,” Eckert said.

“All of these games always have moments. I think we didn’t have the best start to the game, and then you just need the crowd to lift you. After 20 minutes we played an excellent game today and deserved to win.

“When you come up against Millwall you need to match the physicality, and then if you manage to bring the game on the ground there are some moments when we have quality that is not so easy to defend.

“That was the challenge for today. I think we conceded a bit of ground but that was on purpose because we knew we would have the biggest chance today on transition moments.

“That’s sometimes a tough choice, especially when you play at home, because normally in the home games you try to go after the opponents a little bit more, but I think it was the right thing to do for today.

“Now we have to stay hungry and humble like always, because Tuesday is going to be a big test.”