Eckert: We will go there to win

Two years ago Saints played out a cagey first leg at West Brom, a goalless draw that gave Russell Martin’s side the edge ahead of the St Mary’s return game that they won 3-1.

With a home second leg against Boro to come on Tuesday night, a draw at the Riverside Stadium could set the tie up nicely for a West Brom repeat, but the head coach is adamant his team won’t be thinking like that.

“That’s not the way we approach games, and it never has been,” he said.

“At no part of the season has that ever been our approach, to draw a game, so we will go there to win. We will do everything to win the game, and then we will see where we stand.”

Saints have nine survivors from the triumphant 2023/24 play-off-winning campaign, a healthy dose of tried and trusted experience at this stage of the season that Eckert believes can only boost their chances.

“If you’ve done something once, I think the feelings and the emotions that you felt coming into the game, stepping on to the pitch – especially when the pressure comes – it doesn’t hurt you,” he added.

“But it’s not just them. I think we have some good experience also with other players who haven’t been in the play-offs, who have lived different moments in their careers, who are going to help us in the games coming up.”

Middlesbrough (59.5%) are the only team in the Championship with a higher average possession than Saints (56.6%) this season, while Boro have also completed the most accurate passes per match (436.8) and had the most touches in the opposition box (1,455) in the division.

Saints were swept aside on Teesside in the early part of Eckert’s reign, a 4-0 defeat in early January, but the boss believes that will have no bearing on the semi-final, with Saints heading to the North East on a 19-match unbeaten run in the league.

“I think that we are a very different team to the one that we were at the beginning of January,” he stated.

“The group has taken some massive steps forward, and I think that we are now coming to a part of the season where we’ve done this for every single game: independent of who we are coming up against, we don’t look too far back.

“It doesn’t matter at this point of the season how the games have gone. I think you open up a new chapter, and we need to be ready for that one.

“I think they (Middlesbrough) have been quite clear in the way they approach the game. It’s quite clear to see where they have their strengths. If they catch a good day and they start to flow, I think they are a good team in certain aspects of the game.

“But obviously we come from some good weeks, we come from some good months, and in the end it’s about getting our strengths on the pitch, like we’ve been doing for many, many weeks now.”