Having been unbeaten in our last four matches, albeit with the latter two being back to back draws, on paper, Saturday’s Premier League clash against Cardiff City at St Mary’s Stadium should’ve really been another victory for manager Ralph Hasenhuttl.
Despite clearly being the better team on the day in terms of bossing the game, we just didn’t take our opportunities when they came along and the visitors were just far more clinical, taking a 2-1 advantage as almost criminal defending bit us hard again.
Hasenhuttl pulled few punches at the fulltime whistle following the defeat when it came to our defensive efforts on the day and midfielder Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg largely echoed that message in his own post-game thoughts.
Speaking to saintsfc following the hugely disappointing defeat, Hojbjerg admitted we knew there would be some ups and downs but what matters is where we are come the end of the season, not now.
Which is back in the relegation spots.
“Football turns from day to day and week to week. I would love to have a game tomorrow, to go out and win it to forget about today, but the reality is you have to stay realistic and humble. It’s very important to see that what we are on at the moment is a journey. We are trying to achieve our goals, but not from day to day. We have to achieve our goals when the Premier League 2018/19 is finished, and stay in the Premier League. We have to know when the season is over that we’ve done everything in our hands and a bit more to make the club proud, our families proud, the fans and ourselves proud. We will not stop. We cannot stop, and we will come back stronger.”
Definitely the right sorts of words for fans to be hearing, but as ever, that needs to come out on the pitch with a positive end result. Most frustrations here are many will believe it was a game we should’ve won, or at least very least, not lost, but that late goal was a kicker having done all the hard work of getting back into the tie.
