Southampton’s B team manager Dave Horseman gave an honest reflection on his side’s penalty shootout defeat to Eastleigh in the Hampshire FA Senior cup, labelling it a “very disappointing night”.
Enzo Robise had given Saints the lead just shy of the interval with a well taken penalty kick after Ramello Mitchell’s darting run provoked a late challenge inside the box.
The hosts equalised 12 minutes from time as defender Pierce Bird headed home from a deep free kick.
With the scores level at full time the match went to a shootout, with the Spitfires winning 4-2 following misses from Caleb Watts and Pascal Kpohomouh.
“If I’m being totally honest we didn’t deserve anything from the game,” said a frustrated Horseman. “If I’m being honest we barely worked their goalkeeper.
“We gave a group of boys who are low on minutes an opportunity tonight and I don’t think they took it.”
Dave Horseman
We gave a group of boys who are low on minutes an opportunity tonight and I don't think they took it.
Southampton FC B Team Manager
“We’ll be back in on Wednesday and we’ll start again. We have to turn this around and we’re only going to do that if we stick to the identity we have in place and actually implement it properly when they get the opportunity to play.
“We expect much higher from the group. They’ve practised the same as the other boys who play more regularly. This group played a friendly game against Bournemouth last week and we thought we’d kick on from that.
"I thought they [Eastleigh] came with loads of energy. I thought they played in good areas, I thought they had a couple of quick wide men.
"They caused a few of our younger players a few problems because they’ve not really played against men before, or people who have played at such a good level as them.
“But we would expect them to be able to find a way and they didn’t tonight, so a really disappointing evening.
“We’ll have a lot of players to come back in [for Saturday against City] and probably have a different team to what played tonight.
“We have good players and this season, in PL2, we’ve actually played really well. We have to slide in quicker at the back to deny a bit more space and we have to make sure when the ball is in and around their box we have a bit more movement.
“Really it’s fine margins that have been the difference in those games, so to see a performance like we had tonight is really out of character for the group.
“Performances have been good and we were working on the details to improve. But there’s no point sulking. We’ll come back on Wednesday and go again.”
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