Southampton head coach Tonda Eckert felt his side’s 2-1 victory at league leaders Coventry was a “statement” win.
Flynn Downes opened the scoring shortly after half-time before Kuryu Matsuki doubled the lead with five minutes to go, ensuring Saints kept pace with sixth-placed Wrexham.
Victor Torp gave Frank Lampard’s side hope with a stoppage-time penalty, but the Sky Blues saw their six-match winning run ended with just their second home defeat of the season.
“It’s a big result,” said German Eckert. “We had so many questions this week why we weren’t able to beat teams in the top six, and I think that just fuelled us for the game today to make a statement.
“We’ve done this against Fulham, to show that we can beat better teams, and I think that’s been another statement today.
“We knew that the game today was going to be completely different and I think it’s a well-deserved three points.
“We had an idea of how the game was going to go until minute 60, and then we just needed to have the option to open up after, so it was important for us that we had some impact players that can bring the game in our direction other than having that right from the start.
“It’s quite clear Coventry have a heartbeat in their team that you need to control and the idea was to play with one more midfielder today.
“With the result yesterday (Wrexham’s win at Swansea) it was clear we needed to be strong today.
“I told the boys if the game is even at 60 minutes I’ll make changes to win the game, so it’s clear what we are going for today, and I think it’s important to play for three points, we play to win.”
Eckert also labelled midfielder Downes “outstanding” as the 27-year-old scored his second goal of the season.
Eckert added: “He’s done his 100th game for the club today so it’s a big compliment to him. I think he’s at his absolute peak at the moment.
“Every player has some tough moments in their career for different reasons but he’s so important for us as a player, I think he’s grown more and more as a character in terms of leadership within the group and today he was spot on.”
Coventry manager Frank Lampard called the defeat “frustrating” as his side missed the chance to go 12 points clear of third-placed Millwall with just their fourth home defeat in 34 matches.
The former Chelsea midfielder said: “It is frustrating to lose on the basic elements of the game, but I don’t think we deserved to lose.
“We created big chances and we gave them two goals, which is disappointing from us. We don’t normally give those types of goals, especially the corner.
“That’s quite rare for us this season, but yeah, if we were more clinical in both boxes we win the game.
“We were not at our best, a bit slow in the first half. They wanted to slow the game down. It was quite apparent early on and we bought into that a bit. We normally have more variation, more speed, more injection.
“Then in the second half we pushed and pushed and it’s one of those where the keeper makes a big, big save in the first half and we’re pushing at the end and Brandon (Thomas-Asante) hits a shot that if he mis-hits it in any way it goes in but he hits it straight down the keeper.
“So there was some circumstances around the game that I think affected it. But it’s just reality, we lost the game and we’re not used to losing, so it doesn’t feel great.
“That’s a good thing about us. Even when we’re not quite at our best, not quite 100 per cent; third game in a week, the sun’s out and good opposition in this league. And it didn’t quite go for us.”
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