Southampton vs Crystal Palace - Tadic: We need to play with more courage

Posted Monday, January 01, 2018 by PA

Dusan Tadic has urged Southampton to be bold as they seek to end their winless run against Crystal Palace.

Saints have not won in eight games but recovered from their 5-2 Boxing Day thrashing by Tottenham to claim an encouraging 0-0 draw at Manchester United on Saturday.

Midfielder Tadic believes that has given them something to build on as they prepare to host Palace in their next Premier League outing on Tuesday.

The Serbian said: "We have quality. We need to believe in ourselves and to play with more courage.

"We showed (against United) we have the mentality to keep a clean sheet and be more dangerous.

"We had some chances and maybe we should have taken three points but I think we need to be happy with the point.

"Now we need more points and we need to show this in other games."

Tadic puts Southampton's improvement after the Spurs loss down to a better attitude.

The 29-year-old said: "I think we showed what I said - a great mentality. We defend together, we attack together and this is the main point and goal."

Southampton now take on a Palace side who have lost just one of their last 10 games.

Tadic added: "It's a very important game for us. I hope we will take three points, but they're a very strong team and difficult to beat. I hope we can do that but we need to prepare well for that."

Alex McCarthy could keep his place in goal after keeping a clean sheet against United after manager Mauricio Pellegrino dropped Fraser Forster.

Saints are still without striker Charlie Austin, who is both suspended and affected by a hamstring injury. Left-back Ryan Bertrand (hamstring) could be back in contention.

Crystal Palace boss Hodgson conceded his side are "massively stretched" as they prepare to visit St Mary's.

On Sunday they became only the second Premier League team this season to take points from Manchester City when they held the leaders to a 0-0 draw, but they also lost Scott Dann and Jason Puncheon to injury.

Dann's absence is particularly damaging at a time when fellow defenders Mamadou Sakho and Joel Ward are also unfit and - against City - it led to full-back Martin Kelly playing in central defence.

Tuesday's fixture at Southampton represents their third in six days and, while they hope James McArthur and Ruben Loftus-Cheek will again be fit, their hosts will have had an additional day's rest for only their second match in a week.

"We're massively stretched," said the 70-year-old. "Not just at the moment: going forward.

"Sakho's likely to be out for a few weeks to come with a quite serious injury, Joel Ward is still recovering, and there's no sign of him recovering in the next few days, and then we've lost Scott Dann, we've lost Jason Puncheon.

"I'm afraid we've stretched our resources to the absolute limit. That's why it was very nice to see three players who've not had many chances, Jaido Riedewald, Tim Fosu-Mensah and Patrick van Aanholt come in and do as well as they did (against City).

"We will recover one or two players who were unable to play, before the Southampton game.

"Scott Dann's injury doesn't look good, that's for sure. It's a serious knee injury. How serious it'll turn out to be we'll have to wait and see."