Harwood-Bellis: Not a good result
Taylor Harwood-Bellis gave his frustrated reflection following Southampton's narrow, late defeat against Oxford United on Boxing Day.
The centre-back headed in a quickfire equaliser in the first half, after Saints had initially trailed against the run of play, but it was the hosts who scored in the final minute of normal time to seal the victory.
It was a case of not making possession count for Tonda Eckert's side, as Stanley Mills finished on the counter-attack to strike the decisive blow.
"Not a good result, if I’m being honest." said Harwood-Bellis, “if we want to get to where we want to be, we cannot be losing those games.
”I thought we had control in the first half, they scored with their first shot - it’s probably half a chance as well - but we kept the control again and we said second half we needed to do the same thing again but I don’t think we did.”
“We need to get better when the momentum is against us and we need to find a way to change that, which I thought we did but it takes too long to switch the momentum back in our favour.
“We’ve got to regroup and go again, we know the Christmas period, having played in this league before, is crucial. That’s why [this result] is so bitterly disappointing.
“There’s plenty of games if you can get a good run, but we can’t dwell on this, it has to be put to bed. We’ve got to go again and work out how we’re going to win a tough game away from home.
“For the fans, I know it’s a short trip but we feel sorry for them, we wanted to come here and win and give them a good Boxing Day.
“I’m sure they’ll be there at Birmingham supporting us, we’re going to need them. We’ll regroup and Tonda will give us everything to go again.”
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