Joe Aribo says he is upset by Southampton’s 2-1 defeat at Cardiff City in the Championship on Saturday.
The Nigerian midfielder put the Saints ahead in the 12th minute but the Premier League hopefuls could not hold on to it as Senegal’s Famara Diedhiou and Cian Ashford guaranteed the three points for the Bluebirds.
The result was a hard one to take for Aribo as it pushed Southampton further away from automatic Premier League promotion.
“It’s a frustrating one, difficult to take,” he told the club website. “Them scoring late on. Seeing Stu [Armstrong] go down late on is upsetting and hard to take for us.
“You never want to see anyone get stretchered off, especially not your own teammate. It’s tough to see but the boys will try to be around him in the coming days.
“For us we put in a decent performance, we had a lot of chances, it was just about us being clinical and being ruthless in both boxes. That’s what it ultimately comes down to in football. I wouldn’t say we were very clinical.”
— Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) April 20, 2024
Southampton take on Championship leaders Leicester City on Tuesday and Aribo wants the team to quickly forget about the Cardiff loss and move on to the Foxes tie.
“It’s so important [that we take the lessons from today]. I think every game we play we learn, that’s what we’ve got to take from this defeat. We’ve got to move forward, dust ourselves off and get the result we’re looking for in the next fixture,” he added.
“One thing I’d say is good is that [Tuesday’s game] is coming thick and fast because we’re not going to dwell on this one. We’ll dust ourselves off and then put in a good performance because we know they’re a good team.”
Southampton sit in fourth place in the Championship standings and are four points away from automatic Premier League promotion with three games left to play in the regular season.
