Narcis Pelach praises Stoke City as 'survival' plan almost pays off at Southampton
Narcis Pelach praised Stoke City's work rate and discipline as they gave Southampton a scare in the Carabao Cup last 16
Stoke came back from 2-0 down to level 2-2 courtesy of goals from Ashley Phillips and Tom Cannon - then almost won it as Million Manhoef had an effort cleared off the line. But they were ultimately knocked out by their Premier League hosts when James Bree saw an 89th minute long ranger sneak inside the post.
Pelach had made eight changes to his starting XI and gave chances to players who hadn't seen any or much action so far in his rein, including 17-year-olds Jaden Dixon and Sol Sidibe, full debutant Tatsuki Seko and Andre Vidigal and Jack Bonham, who were both making their first starts of the season.
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The plan was to make sure Stoke were still in the game with half an hour to play before sending on A listers such as Manhoef to try to nick a place in the quarter-finals.
Pelach said: "I'm really pleased with the effort and the character and the personality. I made lots of changes, lots of players who haven't had a chance since I came to the club have had a chance today and lots of young players too. Jaden Dixon, 17, Sol Sidibe. I'm really pleased.
"I asked for defensive organisation knowing that against Russell Martin and Southampton we weren't going to have that much of the ball. But we always can fight, always can be organised and we defended small spaces and then hoping we were going to have some transitions in big spaces.
"The idea was to survive for an hour and then bring some starters into the game, hoping that we were going to have more chances in counter-attacks and I think it worked well. We were nearly there. Million Manhoef could have scored but they saved it on the line... and then we conceded a goal when we were down to 10 men.
"I'm really pleased with the effort and character because it wasn't an easy game."