Harwood-Bellis reflects on loss to Millwall
Taylor Harwood-Bellis spoke of the importance of the team keeping their focus ahead of the final 12 games of the season, after they suffered a second setback at home in the space of a few days with a 2-1 defeat to Millwall.
Having lost to Hull by the same score in midweek, Saints – who had won 11 in a row at St Mary's prior to that – suffered another narrow defeat, as Japhet Tanganga's early goal and Zian Flemming's penalty late in the first half sandwiched a Ché Adams header.
Those results, coupled with Leeds continuing their winning run, mean Russell Martin's side have slipped to five points back of the automatic promotion spots.
But, with a dozen games remaining, plenty of time remains to regain that ground.
"There's loads of time, 12 games left," said Harwood-Bellis. "Some of the noise that's going on has been ridiculous and you've just got to block it out and keep going and keep our circle tight of what really matters and that's just winning football matches and keep digging in and not giving up.
"We know bits have got to improve, we're not stupid, we know the goals can't happen and we've got to create chances and score more goals, we know that, but we've just got to keep working on it."
With Millwall ending the day with only three shots on target – including the penalty, awarded for handball against Jan Bednarek – compared to Saints' seven, Harwood-Bellis explained that it was a particularly tough one to take.
"It's very frustrating," he said. "I thought we did well for every minute of the game apart from the two moments for the goals. The handball, which I think was unfortunate. He's on the turn and had a shot and I think it's just kind of a freak where it ends up a penalty.
"The first one we've just got to defend the cross better. It's a moment where obviously they've managed to punish us and you put yourself in such a hard position to break them down, because they'll be rubbing their hands together because that's exactly what they've come for, to get a goal and then sit back and defend. That's what they're good at and they made it hard for us.
"I haven't seen the stats, but I can't imagine they had many clear cut chances, if any, yet we come away with a 2-1 loss.
"But we've just got to crack on, work on it and we'll be fine. We've just got to keep pushing.
"We know the quality we've got, we know what we've done in those past 25 games, but that's gone now. We've got to go and create another run now and go again and block all the noise out that's in the background. It's just not necessary for us to let it affect us, you just go and crack on."
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