At the full-time whistle in the south coast derby, Tonda Eckert thrust his arms out wide and roared into the sky with the rest of the Southampton supporters. It had been a tense 90 minutes after a tense few months, but finally the young German coach could let it all out. At the end of a week where he found out that he will face no immediate ban for his part in the Spygate scandal that rocked the Championship last season, he helped deliver Southampton’s first home win over Portsmouth for 22 years.
Southampton played more than half of a fiercely contested game with 10 men after Cameron Bragg was sent off for a second yellow card on 44 minutes and Eckert was keen to divert credit elsewhere at full time. “I think that one today belongs to the players,” he said. “If you go a man down there’s not so much you can do as a manager outside of trying to give a structure that helps. It’s the players that dig out games like this.”
