Sparky urges Saints not to lose heads
MARK Hughes has a simple message for his struggling Saints stars at Swansea tonight: Don’t panic.
Southampton edged out of the bottom three with a battling 1-1 draw at Everton on Saturday, breathing life into their survival hopes.
That result set up tonight’s winnertakes-all showdown in South Wales in which victory for Hughes’s team should be enough to guarantee safety.
And Hughes insists his players must keep their heads to have any chance of pulling off their escape act.
“The message is just about calmness. You have got to deal with pressure, you have got to think clearly,” he said.
“Obviously, when things are flying around, you have to try to do the right things and you have to take your chances when you create them.
“For the most part, we did that at Everton. We proved to ourselves that we have that capability, we just have to do it.”
Southampton were hard done by at Goodison with some questionable officiating from Jon Moss contributing to Everton’s 96th-minute equaliser.
But Hughes insists there is no time for his side to feel sorry for themselves. “We just mustn’t allow ourselves to be deflated by what’s ahead of us and what’s just occurred. We played well at Everton,” he said.
“We are not down, in terms of confidence and in terms how we are playing. We were damaged because we got so close to getting a significant result and a significant victory which clearly would have helped our situation.
“But it is still very much in our hands and very quickly. We will get this out of our system and go again.
“We are playing well so we shouldn’t have any apprehension about what is ahead of us.”
Hughes must decide whether to start England forward Nathan Redmond after he came off the bench to grab a dramatic opener against Everton.
And his manager believes Redmond has left him with a tough decision after overcoming a huge dip in form, having failed to score all season until his goal at Goodison. “Nathan is basically an outstanding player,” said Hughes. “He lost a little bit of confidence maybe and that was evident in his play. Sometimes he was being too sure, rather than being the natural player he is.
“But he was excellent when he came on at Everton, clearly understood what was required of him.
“I obviously had to make the decision not to start him so he was disappointed with that but it didn’t affect his focus on the game itself because that was why he was able to make the impact he did.”
Maya Yoshida’s red card against Everton means he will be unavailable for tonight’s showdown, while midfielder Mario Lemina faces a late fitness test after being hampered by a hamstring problem.
The former Juventus ace, who played in a Champions League final for the Italian giants, is keen to prove he has put his own future on hold to scrap his way to survival.
“The club have given me everything to perform and I need to give back with all my heart,” Lemina said.
“When you join a team I don’t think you can expect to try to fight to save yourself. But now this is our situation and we have to just keep going and work a lot to save the club.
“For me it is a good pressure because the fans expect a lot from us and we have to give it back. The main thing is to save the club and every single one of us knows that.
“We don’t talk about ourselves, we talk about the club and we just have to save the club.
“After, everyone can make a decision to stay or leave. This is not my problem, my only problem is to win the last few games and save the team.”
SOUTHAMPTON forward Dusan Tadic is a target for Ajax. Tadic joined the Saints from Twente in 2014 and Ajax are keen to take the Serbian back to Holland. Tadic has two years left on his contract but will look to leave this summer if Southampton fail to stay
up.
We have to cope with pressure and think clearly