It was a dramatic night of Championship action as the promotion race took another turn
Stuart Jamieson Football Content Editor
09:35, 15 Apr 2026
Cameron Archer of Southampton celebrates with Leo Scienza after scoring their third against Blackburn(Image: Getty Images)
Southampton manager Tonda Eckert insists it was an easy decision to rotate his side for last night’s 3-0 victory over Blackburn Rovers which heaped the pressure on Middlesbrough and their Championship promotion rivals.
The Saints moved ahead of Boro on goal difference with a comfortable win over Michael O’Neil’s Rovers at St Mary’s – but with Ipswich Town suffering a 2-0 defeat to Portsmouth, it means Boro will move level on points with the Tractor Boys with a victory against them in Sunday’s huge clash.
The race to finish behind champions-elect Coventy City is firmly back on, with Kim Hellberg and Co knowing they must end their poor run of results quickly to stand any chance of reclaiming second spot.
Southampton are the side in form as goals from Cyle Larin, Ryan Manning and Cameron Archer extended their unbeaten run to 18 games.
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Eckert said: “It’s always a test, you can never go into a game thinking it just falls on to you and no competition, you need to grab every single game and I think there’s many teams that don’t want to play us at the very moment.”
Eckert was able to rest five players from the 2-1 win over Derby at the weekend, including Brazilian talisman Leo Scienza, but his team suffered no loss of momentum.
He added: “I think no matter who we put on at the moment, they’re all ready to perform. It’s quite an easy decision at the moment to pick a team, because they’re all ready to go.
“It’s always a combination of where we are at, what the other team might give us, where we need what types of quality on the pitch. I think, quite an easy decision today.”
By contrast, Ipswich were brought back down to earth folloiwng their East Anglia derby win over Norwich last weekend, when two goals in in the final minutes of the first half from Conor Shaughnessy and Colby Bishop gave Portsmouth a lead they didn’t look like relinguishing.
Town boss Kieran McKenna said: “If you concede the first goal from a set-play at this stadium with the atmosphere as it was tonight it’s always going to be tough, and to do it just before half-time was a blow.
“We’re really disappointed with that goal and then to concede probably a minute later, if you take the celebrations out of it, that killed the game for us.
“That’s really the key couple of minutes in the game. Before that, we would have liked to play a bit better in terms of creating chances but it was always going to be a tough night.
“If we get to half-time at 0-0 it’s probably been a pretty steady first half and we’re in a position to push on.
“But you let the game go like that in a couple of minutes before half-time, a really difficult game becomes not impossible but much, much, much more challenging.
“You would have to do fantastically well in that second half to turn it around, and we didn’t manage to do that.”
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