Southampton fans vent anger as players barely come over following 4-0 defeat at Middlesbrough

Southampton head coach Tonda Eckert told BBC Radio Solent:

“The game has two parts today. We can talk about a game to 55 minutes and the part after that and the second part is nowhere near good enough and not acceptable.

“We need to become more resilient as a group. We can be 2-0 up today, but not every game is going to go that way.

“We’ve had some games that went this way and it all looks very nice but there are some games that are just not there and we need to be more resilient.

“It is two weeks until we play our next league game, we need to stick our heads together and find solutions for that because in the second half of the season there are many points to play for, but as I keep saying, we need to be more resilient.”

Eckert, per Sky Sports:

“We saw two games in the end. We played one game in 55 minutes and the other game after that. The first 55 minutes we played a decent game, had more than enough chances, but the second half was not good enough.

“It was a big disappointment. It is not about pointing fingers, the disappointment is huge but there’s no divide. We can talk about the game after 55 minutes, it was nowhere near good enough.

“The first goal changed everything, changed confidence. From what I have heard it was a clear offside decision. It was a tough call and when you invest so much into the game, the second half of the game was not good enough. We needed to score the first goal.

“I expect all the players to go over to the fans (at the end of the game), we are grateful to the support. We need to represent this club in a better way.”

Middlesbrough head coach Kim Hellberg told BBC Radio Tees:

“It was a well deserved win. It was a very good second half, a lot of goals and a message of belief and keep doing the things that we’ve done and that will give you results over time.

“You look at it and see that we haven’t scored for seven hours or something like that and it goes another 45 minutes.

“But the intensity, how the players trained and worked every day at the training ground, how they are with each other and how they worked with their body language even in tough periods in terms of not getting results and the frustration of playing that type of football and not getting the wins or points from that, it shows the belief in the players in how they kept going.”

Hellberg, per Sky Sports:

“I see myself as an offensive coach, but I love the defensive side of things. Even when the goals haven’t come, you couldn’t see the bad body language anywhere in the players. They have been unbelievable.

“This win is about the players, characters, how I see them work at training ground, how they have lifted each other, stayed positive, it has been unreal to play well and not get the points we deserved.

“The business of results is to win games. We saw a group of players today who have kept playing and been brave, and the second half was an unbelievable performance.”