Southampton and Middlesbrough meet at St Mary’s in the second leg of the Championship play-off semi final
Southampton FC head coach Tonda Eckert(Image: Southampton FC via Getty Images)
Tonda Eckert says Southampton will ‘take the positives’ of the first leg draw at Middlesbrough and look to make home advantage count in the play-offs.
Amid the furore over Spygate, Boro and Southampton played out a 0-0 draw at the Riverside in the first leg of the semi-final. Southampton have been charged by the EFL after Boro alleged they caught an employee spying on their training session.
As that case awaits judgement from the independent disciplinary commission, the play-off tie, for now at least, continues. The two sides will decide the tie on Tuesday evening at St Mary’s.
As is standard procedure for Southampton, their plan was to have Eckert do his pre-match press conference for the second leg, as part of his post-match press conference at the Riverside.
But on account of the Spygate scandal, and the questions that were inevitably raised after the game on that, the Southampton press officer cut the press conference short and they walked out, meaning the Saints boss didn’t get a chance to say much on the actual game, or the second leg.
“When you come here away, you will always need to deal with an atmosphere that you come up against,” he reflected. “I think they spent a lot of energy in the first half, and I think we need to be humble enough to accept and to know that there’s some moments where you need to suffer, especially against a team that is very good on the ball.
“I think the boys have done that in an outstanding way. We knew this beforehand, and then I think the game opened up for us a lot throughout the second half. Obviously there were some small adjustments based on what the game gave us.
“The character of the group helps us keep a clean sheet today, and then we had two big chances in the end to win it. It was a proper game.
“I think the boys have been outstanding over 90 minutes, and we take all of the positives into Tuesday. I think the crowd will then give us a very big lift.”
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