‘Should have won’ - Newcastle United teased after ‘struggling’ to beat Premier League new boys
A 10-man Newcastle United edged out Southampton to start the Premier League campaign with a win
Southampton defender Nathan Wood has backed his team to stay up after going “toe to toe” with Newcastle United.
Eddie Howe’s side played for over an hour with 10 men following Fabian Schar’s controversial red card. The Swiss international was dismissed for “headbutting” Ben Brereton Diaz - forcing the Magpies to play a low black for the remaining 63 minutes.
Newcastle snatched all three points on the counter-attack with what proved to be their only shot on target. Southampton, making a Premier League return after winning the Championship play-off final, tested Nick Pope several times.
But the Magpies held firm to start their top-flight campaign with a win. Saints centre-back Wood - an unused substitute at the weekend - thought the visitors deserved to win and backed them to stay up this season.
“I’ve not looked at this season as a fight to stay up,” he said. “That would obviously be amazing and we’d take it. But we have got enough quality and guidance to try and win as many games as possible. We will go from there.
“We aren’t looking at things as if we are in a fight from day one. The game at Newcastle proved that we can go toe-to-toe with quality teams. Yeah, they had 10 men, but we have taken a lot of encouragement from the first half an hour where we played brilliantly.”
“I was on the bench and it felt like we had control of the game. When you watch things back, like we have done this week, you see things that make you think ‘We should have won that game.’ It might not have felt like it on the day but when you simplify things and watch stuff back you find ways that we could have won it.”