Manning: It's all about bouncing back
Ryan Manning gave his assessment following Southampton's defeat at Norwich City in the Championship on Saturday.
Manning's fourth of the season from range equalised for Saints just nine minutes after Jovon Makama opened the scoring for the hosts.
But Makama added a second just past the hour mark which proved to be the winner, Tonda Eckert's side's second defeat in eight.
"We're frustrated," said the defender. "We battled through the first half and had chances where we could've gone in front. We came in at half time, regrouped and thought the second half we'd be better than we were. We had a poor start, went 1-0 down. Then obviously we get back in the game and were looking to push on and try and build from it, but to concede again so quickly just kills the game. They managed to second half really well, managed extra time well, kept it in the corner.
"Football is about moments. If we capitalised on them, take our chances, then all of a sudden the stadium here goes flat. We get on top and then the game looks different. Whereas their fans, to be fair to them, got behind them a lot today, probably gave them that extra bit of energy they needed to stifle us, especially second half. But look it's the end of a tough week of fixtures and we've just fallen a bit short.
"Over the course of the season you're not going to score three or four every week. So we need to start building up clean sheets, start putting as much importance on them as we do scoring goals. It's nice that I've started contributing with goals, the other boys have been stealing all the goals the last few weeks so it's nice that one of us at the back can pop up. But look it's frustrating it didn't contribute to points.
"The gaffer gives us so much licence to go forward and express ourselves, he wants me to get in the box and get on the end of things. So I'm really enjoying it, I think everyone is and I think you can see that from how everyone is playing the last few weeks. Going forward we're going to have setbacks like today, like Millwall. But it's all about bouncing back, making sure we go again, making sure these setbacks and few and far between, and keep building momentum because I think it's six wins in eight which is brilliant form. So we have to keep it up."
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