Southampton were knocked out of the League Cup last night as they were turned over by League Two Gillingham.
The club two leagues below the Saints looked like the side who were higher up the leagues as they dispatched their opponents.
A 3-1 win against a team with such quality despite outgoings, a huge achievement for Gillingham.
Gillingham scored in the 12th minute to open their account through Ashley Nadesan.
They then scored twice within 25 minutes of half-time to go 3-0 ahead both courtesy of a Robbie McKenzie brace.
This result is one neither the Southampton fanbase or anyone involved would have expected.
Therefore, following the result, Saints boss Russell Martin was brutally honest over his team’s performance.
Martin on Gillingham loss
As reported by the Daily Echo, post game Martin spoke with media about the result.
Reflecting on the loss he said, “Was it a surprise? Yes, in terms of the result. But the performance was more surprising. If we’re going to lose, we need to lose in our way.
“I saw too much stuff that we haven’t worked on and people trying to write their own script. We weren’t brave enough to play properly in the first 25 minutes.
“After Friday’s performance, rather than doing the stuff we work on, we had people doing stuff they wanted to do in self-preservation mode.
“It happens a lot in football, thinking ‘as long as I’m okay and I look after my own game’ but it’s not like that with the way we play, it’s never like that.”
He continued to suggest too many players in his side were feeling ‘sorry’ for themselves and thought themselves possibly above the level.
“(There was) too much disappointment and way too much pity and feeling sorry for themselves from some people, and they’re probably the ones who understand they won’t be here or know they won’t be part of the journey.
“We had one player playing out of position really and we didn’t see that being a problem – out of the nine senior players, a lot probably think they are Premier League players.”