Oriol Romeu believes that Southampton should take pride from their performance against Manchester City despite the 2-1 score line at the Etihad Stadium.
The visitors were heading for a deserved point after the midfielder rounded off a sweeping team move involving Ryan Bertrand and Sofiane Boufal only for Raheem Sterling to break Saints’ hearts in the fifth minute of added time.
For the returning Romeu, Mauricio Pellegrino’s men were compact and tenacious in defence, threatening on the counter-attack and “did almost everything” to earn a point, or perhaps even more in Manchester.
“We fought until the very end and they scored an amazing goal in the final seconds of the game. It is so difficult to cover the spaces when City have so many dangerous forwards and maybe we gave (Raheem) Sterling too much space to score.
“Our performance was very good and we should be happy with what we did in spite of the result. I’m sure we will look at all the positives tomorrow.
“For the goal, (Sofiane) Boufal was so composed to take the touch and pick me out and I was completely free to finish. It gave us the belief to go on and win the game but it just wasn’t to be; it was a great move but it didn’t give us what we wanted at full-time.
“Defending well and working hard against City will give us confidence but it doesn’t mean the next game will be easier than this. We need to keep the same intensity, shape and mentality that we showed here.”
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