Eckert pleased with Saints' resilience
Tonda Eckert praised “a proper team performance” from his players after Southampton battled hard for a first away league win of the campaign.
Kuryu Matsuki scored the only goal of a tight game at Carrow Road, following up Caspar Jander’s parried shot from close range.
Eckert was forced to take off the injured Flynn Downes midway through the first half and then opted to replace both full-backs at the interval, with Ryan Manning and debutant Zach Abbott both carrying yellow cards, but was delighted with the way his side pulled through and found a way to win.
“We had to dig very deep, it’s been a tough one today,” he said. “We had a couple of challenges in the game – an early substitution [due to] injury, two substitutions at half time, and that leaves you with only two subs in the second half, but the players have found a way.
“I think that’s most important, even in the early stages of the season, that you always find a way, no matter how that looks like. The support was great, especially in the second half when we needed it. It was a proper team performance.”
The result signalled back-to-back 1-0 wins for Saints following Sunday’s south coast derby triumph over Portsmouth at St Mary’s, having previously failed to keep a Championship clean sheet all season.
“We made a big point out of this,” Eckert said of clean sheets. “There were a couple of things we knew we needed to improve on in the international break, and one of those quite clearly is that we sometimes need to get away with three points if we score only one goal.
“It’s not that we can score five every single time. We haven’t conceded massively, but we hadn’t had a clean sheet in the first eight games.
“It’s been a big thing how we defend once we get closer to our box. There were a couple of situations towards the end where, with the quality that Norwich have, they bring you there whether you want to or not. You need to defend your castle, and I think the boys have done that very well.”
On the injured Downes, Eckert fears it could be ligament damage.
“He said ‘strap me up and I’ll play on Saturday’,” he joked. “Let’s see. I think it’s ligaments on the ankle – on the outside.
“The outside is always a little bit better than on the inside, so let’s hope it’s not too bad. We’ll assess tomorrow and we’ll see.”
