‘Reality bites’ - Southampton boss makes Everton vow after shock cup win over Man City

Southampton gained a confidence boosting victory over Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the quarter-finals of the EFL Cup on Wednesday night ahead of the huge Premier League clash with Everton at the weekend.

Goals from Sekou Mara and Moussa Djenepo shocked City, who have dominated the competition in recent years, winning the trophy four of the last five season. The win has earned Saints a draw against Newcastle United in the semi-finals, with Nottingham Forest facing Manchester United in the other two-legged tie.

Now the attention turns to the league, as both bottom of the table Southampton and Everton, in 18th, head into the Goodison Park clash desperate to secure three points in the battle against relegation.

Despite their brilliant win against City, Southampton boss Nathan Jones maintained his focus is fully on Everton rather than dreaming of cup success in the near future.

“Absolutely not dreaming no, I’ll be up until 3am in the morning watching Everton, then we go in tomorrow and we have a long day and then we have one day to prepare and then fly to Everton and reality bites.

“I’ll probably have 20 seconds in there, I’ll have one glass of wine and at least I won’t get any abuse on the way home.”

Head to head

Everton boast an incredibly strong home record against the Saints; they haven’t lost at home against them for over 23 years, with the last defeat coming on the November 2, 1997, in a 2-0 loss.

In fact, in their last 10 league games, Everton have only lost twice, and won five times including winning earlier this season at St. Marys with a 2-1 comeback victory thanks to goals from Conor Coady and Dwight McNeil.

Faith in Frank Lampard

Farhad Moshiri openly spoke to the fans, amid their concerns about the direction of the club at the current time. The owner responded by backing manager Frank Lampard during his side’s poor run.

“I have faith in the work being done not only by our manager but our director of football [Kevin Thelwell] and board of directors.

I am confident that we now have skilled, experienced and focused professionals at all levels of the club. We are all agreed that our current league position must and will improve.

“We regularly review our performance and initiate change where we feel the club falls short of standard. This has meant we have seen turnover of managers, directors of football and several board members.”

Despite the open letter, The Collective Everton fans group (NSNOW) are planning protests at Saturday’s game vs Southampton as a response as fan unrest continues.