Still pleased with attitude and commitment
Will Still was left pleased with his side’s attitude following the 1-1 draw with CD Castellón in Girona.
The first of two friendly matches during the week-long training camp in Spain, Saints had the lead at the halfway stage when Ben Brereton Díaz’s cross was diverted into his own net by Agustín Sienra.
Both teams made wholesale changes at the interval before Castellón levelled the scores shortly after the hour mark through substitute Kenneth Mamah, rounding off the scoring for the afternoon.
With three of the five pre-season friendlies ticked off, Still hopes to see intensity levels continue to rise.
“We defended with everything we had and that's what we want to see. That's what I mean by commitment, by intensity, because it's easy to say we’re going to play with intensity but that's what it looks like and that's what we want it to look like.
“I think on the whole, whether it be a friendly, or a pre-season fixture, or a cup game, or a league game, you just want to win it and you want to be as competitive as you can be. We're two weeks out now, so we want to get as close to that competition intensity and tempo that we can. It's got to start meaning something as well, which it did today, so that’s positive.
“It was a very good test. They beat some of our opponents in the league quite significantly, so we knew it was going to be a more interesting challenge for us. I was really pleased with most of it to be honest.
“Probably the goal we concede is the stuff we could still work on and is a bit unnecessary to lose the ball where we did and then open the space up that we did. But in terms of attitudes and commitment, it started to look a bit more like what we want to do. That was very positive. It's good. We worked hard Monday, worked hard yesterday and that’s another 45 minutes at a high intensity, so it’s all good.”
The game also saw Mateus Fernandes feature for the first time this summer, with new recruit Damion Downs and unused substitute after only linking up with the rest of the squad on Monday
On Fernandes, the Saints boss said: “His quality on the ball. His reading, his understanding of the game. He's at a very high level and he's got that special thing about him.
"He's interesting in that lower position. He's got a bit more space on the game in front of him. But his energy and for a small man, he's got quite a bit about him and he gets his body about. So he’s a very good player.
For Downs, Still outlined his progress: “It's a question of building him in like we did everyone else, I think. He only got here on Monday and he's trained three times with us. And it's just getting him up to speed, getting him in the team, understanding what we want to do. But also not getting him injured or doing anything stupid."
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