Russell Martin said the Sky Bet Championship automatic promotion race 바카라śdynamic바카라ť has changed after Southampton바카라™s 3-0 domination of Preston. (More Football News)
Saints had looked destined for a play-off place after three defeats in four games during February, but three home wins in seven days has them just four points off the top two.
A Che Adams brace and Stuart Armstrong바카라™s fourth goal of the season sealed the points on Tuesday and Saints boss Martin said: 바카라śI think it was a brilliant performance with some really beautiful stuff.
바카라śIt has been a big week for us. It has changed the dynamic. We were written off some point ago but the players have stuck at it and been resilient.
바카라śWe have the opportunity to take the points off teams around us but if we have to take care of the next one against Cardiff and if we don바카라™t then the others become a bit pointless.바카라ť
Adams opened the scoring in the 19th minute when he tapped in Adam Armstrong바카라™s centre for his 100th career goal.
He doubled his tally by finishing a fine team move with a cool finish before Stuart Armstrong capitalised on a defensive howler to smash in.
The only taint on the evening was an Achilles injury to goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu in the warm-up that looks to have ended his season.
Martin, who promoted Alex McCarthy, said: 바카라śHe has felt something in his Achilles and will have a scan tomorrow. We don바카라™t expect to see him any time soon and we바카라™ll give him all the support he needs.
바카라śAl has trained so well. He has travelled everywhere and trained like a beast. We바카라™ve seen what Joe (Lumley) can do and has done really well and we wanted to see Al. It was a feeling I had in my gut at the time.바카라ť
But Martin added on the performance of Adams, who he subbed off before he could score a hat-trick: 바카라śHe has just threatened to beat me up out there! We had a hug and a laugh and he understands why I had to take him off.
바카라śHe looks like he is going to score all the time at the moment.바카라ť
Preston had the third lowest expected goals of the Championship season with 0.07 and manager Ryan Lowe said: 바카라śThe be all and end all was the first half has cost us. The game plan that we set out to do in the first half was nowhere near.
바카라śThe game was probably over at half-time at 3-0. You can바카라™t give a team like Southampton chances like that because they바카라™re a fantastic team.
바카라śThe game plan was to try and nullify their strengths and capitalise on their weaknesses and we didn바카라™t really do either.
바카라śThey could end up going up automatically, if not they바카라™re going to be a real force in the play-offs.바카라ť
