Martin Hunter unhappy with his side’s performance

Southampton’s Under-21’s manager Martin Hunter has blasted his side’s below-par performance against Everton and rues missed chances as his side slipped to a second straight defeat.

It had been around a month since they had last played, when they lost to Sunderland, and the break did not come at a good time for Southampton’s youngsters, as they continued their poor form.

Southampton lost 2-0 to Everton at Staplewood last night after goals from Henen and Charsley gave Everton the win.

Everton controlled the game and dominated in large spells. However, Southampton did have more than enough chances to get something out of the game and Everton’s goalkeeper made a number of fine saves when Southampton were clear through in-behind the Everton defence.

Speaking after the game, Martin Hunter had this to say:

It was a very poor performance collectively and individually.

Not many players can hold their head high unfortunately. It was poor and way below what we expect at this club.

We’ve had five good chances and not converted any of them but they’ve had several chances too.

When you look at the age of the Everton team, they were younger than us. I mentioned that at the start of the game, but they played with a spirit and urgency that we didn’t have.

However, Hunter was not prepared to use their lack of games in the last month as an excuse for their performance.

I wouldn’t use that as an excuse.

We’ve had several months now working together.

The players understand what we’re about both from an attacking and defending point of view. That was poor from the first minute.

We’ve got to go back to basics now. We’ll recover and a few home truths will be spoken about.