By William Schomberg
LONDON (Reuters) – Southampton remain alive in the Premier League despite being bottom of the table, interim coach Ruben Selles said after their stunning 1-0 win over Chelsea on Saturday.
“This group needed this booster to continue, and this team is alive and needs to be alive for the rest of the season, needs to perform together,” Selles told reporters at Stamford Bridge.
The Spanish coach, who is looking to become Southampton’s permanent boss, praised his side’s fighting spirit as they moved to within three points of safety in the table after James Ward-Prowse’s free kick gave the team their fifth win of the season.
Selles said he was not bothered about rivals Everton and Bournemouth, 16th and 17th respectively, also picking up points with wins on Saturday.
“It’s about us and about our performance or how good we can be,” Selles said.
“If they won it’s better for them. We will go on hunting (in) the next game against Leeds and then if everybody wants to beat this team, they need to be really good and on their best day because we are going to (make) things really hard.”
“(Today) we had a really good performance, a team that shows character and spirit. So more than the result, we came here and we thought we can give the players the chance to perform at the best level and we knew we will have chances to win. That’s what happened.”
Next Saturday, Southampton play Leeds, who are 19th and one point ahead of them, in a battle for points to reach the safety zone.
(Writing by Janina Nuno Rios in Mexico City; editing by Clare Fallon)
