Goals from Wesley Hoedt and Dušan Tadić helped Southampton FC beat West Bromwich Albion FC 2-10 and progress into the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. Pleased with his team’s performance, Southampton FC coach Mauricio Pellegrino said he was happy to see the spirit that his team showed throughout the match.
“We feel happy for many reasons. As a team, the spirit that we showed today was really good from the beginning until the end. West Brom were looking to play long, put us under pressure and make the match into a physical battle but we competed very well especially at set-pieces, even scoring one ourselves. You have to be focused from the beginning and that was one of many small details that made the difference here,” said Mauricio, according to www.southamptonfc.com.
“Until the end we tried to make them think about our attacking threats – like Manolo and Josh from the bench – instead of us worrying about theirs and a possible equaliser; it nearly paid off because we were unfortunate not to score a third late on,” the coach added.
Meanwhile, Tadić hailed Southampton’s character and said, “We are very happy because we showed great character to fight against a physical and strong team, especially in the second-half. It was very important to get an early goal. I think from the start we had a control on the game. In the second-half it was a little bit difficult because they played direct and you need to defend against that. We showed we can do that.”
Hoping to take the confidence in the Premier League clash with Burnley, Tadic said, “Next game we have Burnley who also physical and we need to compete against them. It’s a lot about confidence and I think we are going in the right direction. We will give our best with our fans to go on from this period and win against Burnley.”
Talking about his goal, Tadić said: “It was a nice finish but I am more pleased with our teamwork today. Nathan played a nice ball to Guido who found me and that’s the most important thing.”