Martin hails winning end to "perfect week"
Russell Martin hailed a positive end to a perfect week, as Southampton signed off from Spain with a 3-1 victory over Montpellier in Girona.
The French top-flight side represented Saints’ toughest test of pre-season to date, but goals from Kamaldeen Sulemana, Tyler Dibling and Taylor Harwood-Bellis extended Saints’ one hundred per cent record this summer.
Kamaldeen and Sékou Mara both saw penalties saved, and Martin did detect some casualness in both boxes at the end of a gruelling week’s training, but was buoyed by the result, some of the football his team played and the seven-day camp as a whole.
“It’s been perfect – the camp has been great, we’ve avoided injury, and I’ve really enjoyed being around the guys and the feeling they have together,” the manager said. “It’s been a really successful week and we have to keep building on it.
“I said to them (the players) last night it’s really important to have a good feeling at the end of the week – not to come here today and be an excuse, because we played under real fatigue today, some brilliant stuff under real fatigue.
“We got better as the game went on. In the first half we should’ve scored five goals but we could’ve conceded four, because there was a casual attitude, but that’s down to tiredness and fatigue, nothing else, because the intention was brilliant.
“That got better, we spoke about it at half time, but it’s a really nice way for everyone to end the week. It was a competitive game, it was aggressive, a step up in opposition, and I think the guys coped with it really, really well.
“We are winning whilst getting better, progressing and under big fatigue, so it’s a nice habit – the boys want to win. They want to win in training, they want to win in pre-season.
“How we do anything is how we do everything, and I was a bit annoyed at half time about the attitude in both boxes – ‘don’t worry about it, it’s pre-season’ but we can’t have that, it’s not separate.
“We need to attack everything – training, gym, pre-season friendly – in the same way we will have to at St James’ Park, so it’s been really good, I’m really pleased with the guys.”
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