Southampton won their second Championship game in four days on Tuesday night, defeating Stoke City 1-0 at the bet365 Stadium thanks to Stuart Armstrong’s free-kick. Southampton midfielder Stuart Armstrong says he was delighted with the three points and clean sheet.
Saints came into their midweek encounter with the Potters fresh off a good weekend success over Leeds United at St Mary’s, with the objective of scoring back-to-back league wins for the first time since August at the forefront of their minds.
Russell Martin’s side dominated the opening exchanges, albeit with few clear-cut chances, before Armstrong fired the visitors ahead with a free-kick just before half-time.
In a central position about 25 yards from goal, the Scotland international hammered the ball past Mark Travers in the Stoke goal to put Saints ahead 1-0 only four minutes before halftime.
After spending the previous five years on the south coast as a backup to free-kick specialist and former captain James Ward-Prowse, Armstrong acknowledged it felt good to finally take on the responsibilities on his own.
“I had to wait five years for one!,” he told the Southampton website. “Obviously, having had the privilege of watching him score free-kick after free-kick for all those years, I was thinking ‘what would he do?’ when I was lining up, and yeah, it was a really nice connection, really nice to see it go in the back of the net, and more importantly, really nice to get the three points, so very, very happy with how that went.”
“Really pleased with how things went,” he continued. “Things could have gone better. “I think if we had scored the second goal, it would have been a lot more comfortable for us and we could have finished the game with a little less stress, but having said that, even though we were defending for the majority of the second half, I thought we handled it really well.”The clean sheet is significant for us, and back-to-back wins are even larger, so if we can get some momentum and rhythm in our game and win again on Saturday, we’ll have three really positive results after a terrible month.
Not every game will be controlled football and excellent football. That’s ultimately what we want and what we’re going for, but in this league, clubs have different traits, are very physical, and play straight football.
“I’m really proud of us tonight to be able to secure the win, keep a clean sheet and fight for every single point, as we’re going to have to in this season.”
Southampton return to Championship action on Saturday for the third time in seven days. They host 23rd-placed Rotherham United at St Mary’s, who are winless in four games before hosting Bristol City on Wednesday night.
Leave a Reply