What Will Still wants Southampton to ‘eradicate’ after Carabao Cup defeat at Liverpool

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Championship strugglers Southampton fell to a 2-1 defeat at Premier League champions Liverpool in the Carabao Cup third round on Tuesday night.

Former Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak scored his first goal for the Reds shortly before half-time to send the hosts ahead at the interval.

Into the second half, Southampton midfielder Shea Charles scored the equaliser from close range to send the travelling Saints faithful behind the goal into raptures.

Unfortunately for Will Still, Southampton conceded ten minutes after, courtesy of Hugo Ekitike, who was then sent off for a second yellow after taking his shirt off to celebrate.

With Southampton suffering consecutive defeats, Still explained the areas of play his side must cut out to turn their season around.

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Will Still admits Southampton must stop conceding soft goals

Following Southampton’s 3-1 defeat at Hull City, Tuesday evening’s cup defeat at Anfield means that Still’s side have conceded five goals in their past two games.

Specifically in the Championship, Southampton have conceded an average of 1.5 goals per game so far and have kept just one clean sheet in six league outings.

Although Southampton’s attack is not quite clicking either, Still admitted after the Liverpool loss that his side must “eradicate” conceding easy goals for their opponents.

Still told Southampton’s website: “I’m really pleased with a lot of the things we’ve done tonight.

“If we’re being honest, it sums our season up so far. You’re doing a lot of good things, you’re doing a lot of things right.

“We’ve hit the crossbar, missed a big, big chance and the next action we’re shooting ourselves in our own foot and conceding a really frustrating goal.

“The scenario repeats itself, you’re chasing after the game, you do really well, react well, get back in it and we’ve lost focus for half a second and when you do that against such quality then you pay for it.

“But we’re getting there. I know it’s annoying and frustrating, but there are a lot of good things, there are a lot more positives, at least we stood up and made ourselves manly and accountable for what we were doing.

“Our shape, our organisation, our structures, but also the commitment to the cause and defending our box were really, really good and we’ve not actually conceded that many chances, but again we’ve not made it very difficult for them to score.

“So we need to eradicate it, I seem to be saying it every week, but we need to and we just need to keep going.”

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Southampton will struggle for clean sheet against Middlesbrough

Southampton face Middlesbrough at St Mary’s on Saturday afternoon, with the visitors still unbeaten in the Championship.

Middlesbrough beat West Brom 2-1 on Friday evening, continuing their potent run in front of goal with two strikes from David Strelec and Kaly Sene.

Rob Edwards’ side are the Championship’s joint-third highest scorers so far this season (11 goals), with an average of 1.8 goals scored per match.

The in-form Boro attack will fancy their chances against the struggling Southampton backline, and Still may find it difficult to solidify their leaky defence when the table-toppers visit this weekend.