Southampton have said they are "disgusted and disappointed" after Kyle Walker-Peters was subjected to sickening racist abuse following the 0-0 draw with Manchester United.
Ruben Selles' side battled away to secure a well-earned point against 10-man United in their pursuit of Premier League survival this season. Although Saints remain bottom, they are just two points from safety and five behind 12th-place Crystal Palace with 12 matches to go.
However, in the aftermath of the game at Old Trafford, Walker-Peters suffered an array of racist abuse on Instagram. The 25-year-old had not posted for a week, but some individuals went onto his last post to insult the right-back.
Having received an array of racist messages in the form of language and monkey emojis, Walker-Peters was also targeted with other types of hate, which included posts that wished him injury. Comments were visible on Walker-Peters' Instagram account for over eight hours and were still on there on Monday morning.
On Monday, the Saints released a powerful statement, condemning the abuse: "In February 2021 the club made a statement about one of our young players receiving abhorrent racial abuse following a match against Manchester United.
"More than two years on, we find ourselves in the exact same position: disgusted and disappointed in the behaviour of those online who lower themselves to abusing players for the colour of their skin.
"What is equally frustrating is the lack of meaningful action in those two years from the social media platforms who allow such hatred to breed and fester.
"As we have said before, Southampton Football Club fights every day to remove such people from our sport and our community in order to protect our players, our staff, Southampton fans and those football supporters around the world who recognise and celebrate the diversity that makes football special.
"We have forwarded the messages concerned to Hampshire Police in keeping with our normal processes when dealing with these cases. We have also reported these posts to the social media platforms involved.
"We can only hope that they finally pay attention to what continues to be a major problem and that we do not find ourselves repeating these words in another two years time."
On the pitch, it was a positive day for Southampton, who despite remaining at the foot of the table, continue to impress under Selles. But the recently appointed boss admitted that his side were not happy with a point, having played against a United side down to 10 men for almost an hour following Casemiro's straight red.
“We have two parts today in the game," he said. "One is the performance. We are really happy with the performance we put out there and that is what we are trying to implement and we are analysing that every time.
"So the performance is fantastic, 11 vs 11 we did a really good part of the game and then 11 against 10 we tried to find our moment, try to be calm with the ball and find the pockets, don't get caught in transitions. We knew they had some situations with [Marcus] Rashford, especially into the space and we wanted to win the game.
"As I say two days ago, I said before to you that we are going to go and compete our very best and that we are going to try and win every football game. Unfortunately that didn't happen, we are not happy with the point but we are happy with the performance."
Southampton face Brentford on Wednesday night looking to secure a vital victory as Selles' side aim to avoid the drop this term. This is followed up with another home game against Tottenham before the international break.
