Ward-Prowse on painful afternoon
Southampton captain James Ward-Prowse gave his thoughts after the club was relegated from the Premier League following defeat against Fulham.
On a difficult afternoon at St Mary’s, Fulham secured three points through two second-half goals, the first coming through Carlos Vinícius on 48 minutes after a quick counter.
The second came with just over 15 minutes to go, the returning Aleksander Mitrovic with a close-range header which ultimately sealed Southampton’s fate.
“It’s a difficult moment for the club,” reflected the captain. “It’s something, in all honesty, we’ve been fearing for a little while. For the last couple of years we’ve not been performing at the level I believe we should be and I think this season’s caught up with us.
“It’s tough, it’s not a nice moment. For any player with any experience but especially with the young squad we’ve got. A difficult moment now but hopefully one everybody will learn from and it’s a time for everybody to go away now, have a think about what they’ve done over the season.
“Whether they’ve done enough and whether we as a group and as club have done everything we can to sustain our Premier League status. Ultimately it’s not been good enough.
“You have to learn from these moments. Like I said it’s not just down to today, it’s down to the first day of pre-season and every day you come into training to better yourself and do everything you can for the club and the team.
“Whether we as a club have done that well enough over the course of the season, I don’t think we have and that’s why we are where we are right now.
“I feel for [the fans] because they don’t deserve to see what we’ve produced this season and that’s the sad thing.
“There’s a way to lose games and there’s a way to fail in sport. The way we’ve done it this year, that’s the disappointing thing. We didn’t really go down with a fight and given everything we can. That’s the disappointing thing.”
