Ipswich Town boss says winning goal a ‘moment to cherish’ while Saints manager said his team deserved to win the game

Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna said the last gasp winning goal from Jeremy Sarmiento was a “moment to cherish” and it capped off “another brilliant day, another brilliant match” and was a “fantastic performance” from his side.

The 97th minute winner from the on loan Brighton loanee, who came on as a substitute late on in the game, resulted in the majority of the 29,393 crowd erupting after he stabbed the ball home for the 3-2 win in the game of the day in the Championship between the two promotion chasing sides.

But bullish Southampton boss Russell Martin said his side deserved to win the game despite the defeat.

“We were the dominant team and I’m proud of the players,” he said.

McKenna said: “It was right up there. Another brilliant day, a brilliant match to be involved in, a really high-level, fantastic performance, both teams did so many good things, a great day to be involved in and of course when you win it with a last minute winner like that it’s a moment to really cherish.

“I thought the first half was a good game we were both giving each other problems, they executed fantastically well for their two goals.

“We had the blow of Keiffer (Moore) coming off and that probably gave them momentum for 10 minutes before half time or so but I think the feeling in the dressing  room was we just needed to regroup.

“But we knew we were in for a really good second half and there were going to be spells where Southampton were going to be in the ascendency but we also knew that we would have a threat and capable of scoring goals.”

Martin said: “We missed three good chances late on. We responded amazingly well to a poor goal to concede so I think when you’re in the game and you are the dominant team and we should go on to win the game but we missed two massive chances and then we go down to 10 men and they take theirs and even at 2-2 I thought we were going to win the game.

“With 10 men Brooksie goes through in the box and squares it and we nearly score.

“I’m so proud of the players, a brilliant performance and if we play like that between now and the end of the season we will be right there I think.

“We played brilliantly tonight no one can say any different and it hurts a lot (to lose) but we’ll know how much a blow it is in four week’s time.”