fbpx
Connect with us

Chelsea

Chelsea fans troll Southampton fans for leaving early; Russell Martin speaks on fans booing

Chelsea fans troll Southampton fans for leaving early; Russell Martin speaks on fans booing the team off come the final whistle.

Martin also had his say on Jack Stephens’ red card for pulling Marc Cucurella’s hair before Southampton went on to lose 5-1 to Chelsea.

He also stated that the red card issued to Jack Stephens “cost” his team, with video replays showing that the Saints captain had pulled Cucurella by his hair.

Referee Tony Harrington consulted the pitchside monitor before issuing a straight red card to Stephens for the incident.

Player ratings (per Sky Sports):

Southampton: Lumley (5); Bree (5), Wood (5), Stephens (4), Walker-Peters (6), Manning (6); Armstrong (6), Aribo (7), Fernandes (6), Fraser (6); Archer (6).

Subs: Brereton Diaz (6), Sulemana (6), Sugawara (6), Taylor (6), Edwards (6).

Chelsea: Jorgensen (7); Gusto (7), Disasi (8), Tosin (7), Cucurella (7); Caicedo (7), Fernandez (7); Madueke (9), Palmer (8), Felix (7); Nkunku (8).

Subs: Sancho (7), Veiga (6), Dewsbury-Hall (6).

Player of the Match: Noni Madueke.

“I don’t think anyone will be more disappointed than Jack,” Martin said.

“He’ll be hurt more than anyone and it changed the game a bit for us tonight.

“I’m disappointed for him and us, it’s a moment of madness that has really cost us.”

This was Stephens’ second sending off of the season, having previously been dismissed when Man Utd won at St Mary’s back in September, meaning he’s the first Southampton player to be sent off twice in a Premier League season since Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg in the 2018-19 season.

“I’ve not even seen it but they explained to me what happened,” Martin added. “I don’t think it’s really violent conduct but there’s no explanation for it really, is there?”

Russell Martin also says he “understands” fans voicing their displeasure despite remaining “proud” of his players.

Martin said per Daily Echo: “I understand that people want their team to win and when they see such a big scoreline and a couple of goals we concede, I understand it.

“So it’s football, right? It’s emotive and people feel so much about it, it’s why it’s such a special sport in this country and so big so I understand it.

“I feel really proud of the players tonight. Some of the football they played, we played, 11 against 11 was amazing and we should have been 1-0 up.

“We conceded such poor goals, a set play and a mistake, but the response was brilliant, we’re so in the game, have good moments and hurt them with the ball.

“They hurt us as well because they have top talent but I saw a team that looked confident and took the ball a lot in the press early on in the game.

“We have a moment that changed the game because I thought we were in it, there were goals for us and then for an hour with 10 men we dug in so deep.

“There were some big performances and I’m proud of them for that and I’m grateful to them for that because that’s not easy in that circumstance.

“It would be so easy at that point to stop running a bit, stop wanting the ball but they didn’t and there were some big performances.”

Southampton owners, Sport Republic and the full Saints leadership team, had been watching the game.

When questioned on how he expects them to judge the night, given the circumstance, Martin replied: “I hope in the same way it would judge any other performance.

“We have to be realistic and put it in perspective. We’ve played against one of the best teams in the country at the moment with 10 men for an hour.

“They see a team that is absolutely together and fighting so hard and who show that in the way they run and want to take the ball for each other.

“I think all I can ever ask is they work as hard as they possibly can and they fight as hard as they can – and I believe they’re doing that.”

‘I’m very happy with the five goals we scored,’ said Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca.

‘I’m not happy with the first 15 to 20 minutes where we struggled. We struggled because we prepared the game to play man to man [out of possession], and we were not pressing man to man in the first 15 to 20 minutes.

‘If you don’t go man to man against this team, you struggle to recover the ball. After then, we adjusted that and the game was much better. It completely changed.

‘It was a good game from all of them. Sometimes you have to adapt when you play 10 players, you can slow the game and keep the ball, but we created so many chances. We could have scored more, but five goals is enough.

‘It was a very good feeling [hearing the chants] especially because you can see they are happy. It’s our target. We work every day to keep them happy. Tonight it was a very good feeling, especially the one where they say ‘Chelsea is back’. This is important.

‘The results help a lot, and calm down the noise around the club. It’s a good feeling to see the fans happy after the last two years when many things happened. You can see now the feeling from them is good.’

Related Topics
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

More in Chelsea