SAINTS head coach Tonda Eckert believes his side have made “a huge step forward” in their mentality as they saw out a third win in four matches.
Debutant striker Cyle Larin netted with his first touch for the club to secure a 1-0 win over managerless Watford in front of the Sky Sports cameras.
The St Mary’s outfit have kept clean sheets in all three victories, while they also drew 1-1 at rivals Portsmouth in an intense derby day atmosphere.
The only goal Saints have conceded since Eckert called out his players for needing to find a desire to win was a set-piece in the Fratton Park clash.
Eckert credited his internal staff at Staplewood, who he says have supported the coaches and players to find a deeper resilience and grind out results.
First team psychologist Tom Hodgins, psychologist consultant Dr Andrea Furst, and first team coaches Jeremy Newton and Ben Reeves all came in for praise.
“That resilience we’ve been talking about over a few weeks is something you can’t really measure, but you can measure it in terms of results,” he said.
“Over the last weeks, we’ve made a huge step forward because we conceded a one-set piece on an away game, for the rest we have four clean sheets.
“That’s very important moving forward, that we are solid as a team. With the quality that we have further up the pitch, we’ll always be able to score one.
“We have started a project with our staff in terms of resilience. You can break that down into behaviours on the pitch, so you can make it concrete.
“It was clear over the last month that this is something very important for us. There have been games where we are clearly on top but have not won.
“You can keep talking about we’ve been the better team on stats, but there’s something more profound to figure that out and put that into a process.
“I think we’ve left everything on the pitch today. Sometimes you have the chance to bring those games in your direction a little bit earlier and we did.
“We didn’t manage to do it, so then you need to dig deeper, and we were prepared to dig deeper. The consequence is coming away with three points.”
The upturn in form coincided with Eckert’s decision to switch formation back to a four-at-the-back and restore James Bree and Welington to the team.
“At Stoke, we had the highest total distance run that we’ve had all season. If you want to defend, you need to run. It’s as easy as it sounds,” said Eckert.
“There’s always a shape, there’s a structure, there’s an idea. You can cover a lot with a certain emotionality and desire to invest in every moment.
“There might be some games where it goes a little bit more back and forward and you need some more. But I think we needed to become more solid.”
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