Eckert: We gave everything to create new history
Tonda Eckert felt his players gave “absolutely everything we could” to rewrite history and repeat the heroics of 1976 after Southampton came up agonisingly short of reaching another FA Cup final 50 years on from lifting the trophy.
Not only did Saints contain a Manchester City side who have now reached a record four finals in a row, but even took a shock lead with 11 minutes to go when Finn Azaz curled an unstoppable shot into the top corner of James Trafford’s net in front of their jubilant yellow-shirted supporters.
But Jérémy Doku’s speculative shot took a cruel deflection to beat inspired goalkeeper Daniel Peretz three minutes later, before Nico González’s bolt from the blue sealed Saints’ fate, leaving the head coach with no regrets after a cup run to be proud of.
“The performance was excellent today,” Eckert said. “These teams make you suffer in moments of the game, whether you want to or not, they’re going to push you down to defend a little bit deeper in some moments of the game.
“I think we’ve done this brilliantly over big, big spells, and you know that down the other end you are always going to get some moments.
“We had a big one in the first half that was a very small, close decision and we had the one in the second half. I think it speaks for us that it’s two goals from distance that we’ve conceded today, but it is what it is.
“You have to give credit to City and the way they keep pushing in those moments of the game. They’re a team full of champions and you see this towards the end – it just becomes harder and harder.
“I think we’ve done absolutely everything we could today. I think everyone who was in the stadium saw that we left everything out on the pitch, and then it lives off small moments – these games are decided by small moments.
“Unfortunately they were not on our side towards the very end, but the performance was outstanding, the away support was outstanding, and we are going to need exactly the same for the last games of the season.
“It was just so nice coming into the stadium, looking towards the right and having the whole stadium in yellow. Big, big credit and thank you to the supporters, but we put the game to bed now quickly, and we’ll go again on Tuesday.”
