Martin: We need to be brave
Suffering a third successive defeat, manager Russell Martin is calling for his players to be brave in the face of adversity, following the narrow 1-0 defeat at the hands of Ipswich.
Omari Hutchinson’s strike on the half-hour mark proved the difference at St Mary’s, as Saints failed to score at home for the first time this season.
Enduring a rough patch of form, Martin offered an honest assessment.
“We make a mistake and get punished for it and concede a poor goal and then didn’t react well enough to the disappointment. We are having a tough moment with the three defeats, but the reaction to disappointment in games and to disappointing moments is what’s really hurting us to be honest.
“We started the game really brightly and then made a mistake and concede - which will get less and less as the season goes on - we’re paying for that with people learning and trying things so we got hurt and went one nil down and then for 20 minutes we totally lost our rhythm and lost our way and fear just crept in the whole place and you can feel it.
“So it’s really time now for everyone to be brave, the players, the staff, the supporters at times, they were great in the second half, they really stuck with the team, so the reaction to disappointment, it’s not good enough, we don’t look after each other enough on the pitch in those moments and you have to really want to be the guy to take the ball and settle the game down again and we just don’t quite have enough of that.
“That comes from deep-rooted problems from last year’s disappointment, the scar tissue of that, some of the lads have that playing here at the moment and it’s not an excuse, I think it’s quite evident when we have a disappointment on the pitch it really hurts us and really affects us, so it’s a brilliant opportunity for us to get together, to stand up, be brave and come through it together, because if we do we’ll be so much stronger for it when we do.”
Now facing a trip to bottom of the table Middlesbrough on Saturday, Martin is calling for a change in mentality from his players.
“We have options ahead of Saturday,” he said. “I don’t know if the team will look the same yet, I will have to analyse the game and see how everyone is, but the players that get on the pitch have to be the bravest players, have to be the ones who are really willing to carry on doing certain things if we have any disappointments together, which is natural in football.
"At the minute, the last few games have been defined by how we deal with disappointment and we haven’t dealt with it anywhere near well enough and that is everything that’s gone on here for however long and we have to ride that out and make sure we really start changing that mentality.”
