Martin hails second-half showing
Russell Martin hailed Southampton’s second-half performance, and a goal to remember from Kyle Walker-Peters, as his side extended their unbeaten run to ten matches with a 1-0 victory over Bristol City at St Mary’s.
The manager felt Saints were “ok” in the first half and “brilliant” in the second, restricting their visitors to no clear sights of goal after taking the lead in spectacular fashion two minutes after the interval.
Before that, Gavin Bazunu made two smart interventions to preserve his third clean sheet of the season, as City registered only one shot on target all night.
“We were ok first half – not good, not great, ok. Not a bad performance but not a really good one, lots of the right intention but not done with enough aggression or detail,” Martin reflected. “Second half I thought we were really brilliant, as good as we’ve been all season.
“We changed shape a little bit, it worked really nicely, but that’s credit to the players, because whatever you try to change, they have to do it with real intensity.
“Some of the courage to play, even in the first half, out of some really tricky moments was really brilliant to watch. I’ll never lose appreciation of that or gratitude for that.
“I’m just frustrated we probably don’t score more goals in the end, because I thought in the second half we were so dominant.
“Gav had to make a really brilliant save in the first half, and then come out really quickly, and we caused our own problems in the first half by trying to force it a little bit against a team that were set up to really block the middle and were compact, to counter-attack with lots of energy, which we knew they would and they’re good at it, really good.
“I think the only frustration or disappointment is we don’t kill the game off with another goal, because we had so many good moments in the second half, but it’s a clean sheet, really pleased with the lads, they had one shot on target and we’re ten games unbeaten.”
As for Walker-Peters, the match-winner, Martin was gushing in his praise.
“I’m running out of superlatives to describe him,” he said. “He is a really gifted footballer, really top, top level technical ability. It’s not surprised us, because we knew how good he was, but it’s even more impressive with the stuff he can do, and he’s a really quick learner, really intelligent.
“His mentality is really growing as an organiser, more of a leader in the group now, which I think he has the capability of being, so I’m really pleased with him, I’m enjoying working with him and hopefully he’s enjoying himself. It was a beautiful goal.”
