Carvalho sets his sights on victory over the Baggies
IN-FORM STAR WANTS REPEAT OF DISPLAY AT SAINTS
Hull City’s Fabio Carvalho played a starring role on Tuesday night as the Tigers earned one of their most impressive wins of the season, with arguably their best display to beat Southampton 2-1 at St Mary’s. The Tigers loan star capped a fine performance with the second goal shortly before half-time, adding to Anass Zaroury’s seventh-minute strike after Jaden Philogene’s shot was parried into his path by Saints goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu.
City’s first half display was sensational, with Liam Rosenior’s side pressing the Saints into submission and forcing a plethora of chances, and though the Tigers had to be resolute in the second period, the hosts could only find a way through in the final couple of minutes when Joe Aribo slammed in.
“That was a good performance,” the on loan Liverpool man told the Mail. “There’s stuff that we can improve on, like always, but we stuck to the gameplan, especially in the first half, which is crucial, in the second half they changed, we had to adapt and I think we got what we deserved.
“I think so (the best performance of the season). It started from the press the way we were pressing.
“We knew that their strengths were to keep the ball and pass the ball, and we weren’t going to come here and sit off and let them have the ball and play into their hands.
“We knew that if we came here and we pressed the life out of them, we’d have a chance, we played some good football in the first half. All credit to the work that we put in on the training ground.
“The manager said (at half-time) that we could have been three or four up. We got the the two goals, but it wasn’t enough because we knew how well we were playing so it wasn’t enough. We knew that they were going to change something at half-time, and we just tried to adapt as much as we could.”
Attention now for City turns to West Brom, who were 3-0 winners at Plymouth on Tuesday and sit one point and one place above the Tigers ahead of today’s early kick-off and Carvalho says the Tigers must reproduce that level.
“We need to do that every game,” he said. “But obviously, every team plays different football with different tactics, but if we play with the same intensity, and if we press with the same intensity, we’ll create chances higher up the pitch, we’ll win the ball back to force teams into making errors.
“We’ve got a game on the weekend and we need to focus on that and take each game as it comes, we know that’s obviously a big game. We’ve got three points which is crucial, but we’ll just take each match as it comes.”