Macca's Notebook: The game that saved Southampton's season

There are two that instantly come to mind – they both come from the same season, at a crucial period for the future of the club. I’m going to start off today with that win over Bournemouth, at St Mary’s back in April 2018, in what turned out to be a win that kept our season alive. 

SOUTHAMPTON 2-1 AFC BOURNEMOUTH – SATURDAY 28TH APRIL, 2018

We effectively had four games left to save our season – prior to this game, the situation didn’t look great. We were sitting in the bottom three and were four points off safety.

Bournemouth were safe but we couldn’t underestimate them. It was simple, we had to win and pile the pressure on Swansea, who were directly above us and had a tricky game against Chelsea later that day. 

There was a real sense of belief when we got off the coach at St Mary’s, the fans believed that we could get out of this, and so did we. I remember looking around the ground when warming up and there was a real mixture of emotions – nerves, excitement and restlessness just to name a few, and those emotions were shared within the whole team!

Leading from the front: Alex McCarthy emerges from the tunnel to face Bournemouth in April 2018 (Pic: Southampton FC/Matt Watson)

I couldn’t see a spare seat in the ground when kick-off arrived. This was our biggest game of the season so far because if we lost the consequences could’ve been disastrous. We started very brightly, our front three of Dusan Tadic, Nathan Redmond and Charlie Austin were causing Bournemouth plenty of problems. 

25 minutes of the first half had flown by, when from a Bournemouth corner Tadic, Redmond and Mario Lemina broke at electrifying pace, leading to Tadic calmly putting us 1-0 up after a brilliant pass from Lemina. The whole ground erupted, the belief was there – we all knew we could do this.

We continued to play some great stuff in that first half and looked certain to go in at the break with the lead. Bournemouth had another corner in added time at the end of the half. We simply lost our concentration for a split second and Josh King punished us. You could just feel the whole stadium fall flat – it was a sickener and one that was so tough to take.

We had no time to feel sorry for ourselves. There was still 45 minutes left, we had to pick ourselves up in that dressing room and go again. And that’s exactly what we did.

Tadic was in the mood that afternoon – he was a fantastic player for us, and you’ve all seen what he’s gone on to do with Ajax. His quality is undoubted.

Ten or so minutes into the second half, Dusan struck again with a stunning strike from just outside the box, with an even more impressive goal than his first. I’ve not heard a roar like it at St Mary’s, it was truly electric.

The last half hour must have been unbearable for you Saints fans, trust me I kept looking at the big screen, wishing the clock would speed up. Bournemouth began to pile on the pressure towards the end, and I can recall making two saves that I remember fondly to this very day. 

They both came in the dying minutes, with the first a reaction save with my feet as Ryan Fraser drilled a low shot inside the box, heading towards the bottom right-hand corner. However, the second one was my favourite.

McCarthy gets the better of Bournemouth's Asmir Begovic to punch the ball away (Pic: Southampton FC/Matt Watson)

It was Fraser again with the shot but this time it was from outside the box – the shot took a huge deflection which made it loop up and it was heading towards the top right-hand corner. I managed to get my right hand to it, and tip it past the post and out for a corner. It was probably the last kick of the ball, and if we had conceded there it would have been devastating for the whole club.

Shortly after, the full-time whistle finally arrived, and it was greeted by the biggest roar. We knew we simply had to win that afternoon to give us any fighting chance of getting out of the situation we were in.

I’ll always remember the scenes at full-time clearly. Some of the boys just fell to the ground in pure exhaustion both mentally and physically. When we got back into the dressing room, Dusan was last in and we all just erupted when he walked in – we hadn’t experienced a big win like that for a fair few weeks, but we knew that this was just the beginning of the job in hand.

Once the manager, Mark Hughes, finished his debrief, all focus was straight onto the next game. We had a little period after the match to celebrate the win, but as soon as we left St Mary’s that day, we were already thinking about Everton the next weekend.

It was edge-of-the-seat stuff from start to finish, and I must apologise if that day gave any of you Saints fans some grey hairs! My word, how important was that win – a real defining day for the club.