Up-to-date information about Birmingham City as Southampton manager Russell Martin discusses their victory over the Blues on Saturday.
Despite Saints winning 3-1, Southampton manager Russell Martin expressed frustration over the goal that “changed” the game against Birmingham City.
The hosts won easily at St. Mary’s thanks to goals from Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Carlos Alcaraz, and Adam Armstrong, but Wayne Rooney’s wait for his first win as Blues manager continues. With a goal from Jay Stansfield to make the score 2-1, Birmingham had hope in the second half. Martin expressed his displeasure with the way Rooney’s team gave up the goal, saying they hadn’t “really done much to hurt us”.
He said to Sky Sports, “Their goal comes out of nowhere and it changed for the next 10 minutes.”
“I believe you anticipate a spell from the team at some point during the match, and that was after they scored. We regained possession and scored the third goal to end the match. We played some amazing football today, in my opinion. I’m quite pleased with the players.
“At that point, they haven’t really done anything to hurt us, open us up, or look too threatening, so I’m annoyed—as should be the players—to concede a goal.
“But it’s been a great week for us and as I said, we played some brilliant football today with real purpose, real aggression, real intensity, real energy, which at the end of the week where we’ve had so much travelling and played Wednesday night is not easy.
“And then the subs came on and had a big impact for us and really helped us. Two wingers, one crosses the other one heads it down and, and Army [Adam Armstrong] scores and Joe Aribo was great when he came on so it’s been a big effort from everyone. I’m really proud of them and yeah, it’s put us in a nice position.”
