Southampton manager Nathan Jones is hoping to follow Eddie Howe’s lead after Newcastle United ended his chances of leading his team out at Wembley.
The Saints made the long journey to Tyneside in the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final against the Magpies. But, as in the first leg last week, it was United who struck first, with Sean Longstaff’s first-half double putting them in complete control of the tie.
However, the majority of those inside St James Park was on edge when Che Adams pounced on a poor pass from Joe Willock and fired a low drive past Nick Pope to become the first opposition player to beat Magpies keeper Romain Perraud in a league clash between the two sides in November.
The visitors’ chances of turning the game around were boosted with eight minutes remaining when Bruno Guimaraes was shown a straight red card after a VAR review for a challenge on Sam Edozie after being initially shown a yellow.
But United held on to win their first Wembley Cup final since 1999, leaving Jones and the Saints to concentrate on retaining their Premier League status for the rest of the season.
Jones praised his team’s reaction after falling two goals behind at a raucous St James Park and admitted he hopes to have a similar impact as Eddie Howe did during his time at Newcastle.
“We were clearly the better side in the second half,” he told Sky Sports.
“It shows we can come to big places and be a really good side, but we just have to give ourselves an opportunity, we can’t chase games, and we can’t really give a side like Newcastle a lead because if they get it they are very difficult to break down.
“We’ve just said they didn’t keep a clean sheet tonight, so that’s a positive, but it’s all about the league now and if we keep the performance levels up we will be fine. The team responded really well in the second half, and I thought we were really positive in the second half, as were the players who came on.
“But congratulations to Newcastle and Eddie, he’s got a fantastic team here and hopefully, given some time, we can be similar.”
The Saints will return to Premier League action on Saturday when they travel to Brentford.
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