Sourced from Daily Echo article
Romeu: ‘we can now play without pressure’
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ORIOL Romeu reckons Saints can now start to express themselves more after easing their relegation fears with a 3-2 comeback win at West Bromwich Albion.
The Spaniard was mightily relieved to climb out the drop zone and ease the pressure on manager Mauricio Pellegrino.
Romeu admits, however, that Saints still have a lot of “finals” to come in their bid to avoid going down.
He said: “It’s a sort of relief and happiness because we are looking for this three points for a long time.
“It will help us in the table because we were in a bad situation. We are not out of it, but it will be easier now.
“There will be less pressure to play and we can enjoy our games. We still have a lot to go and so many finals to be played. It will be difficult but we have to be more consistent and play like we did today.”
He added: “It was massively important to win and get the three points. We fought a lot. It was very hard. We put ourselves up 3-1 after conceding early.
“It was another cross and we didn’t defend it well enough for the goal. After that we defended well at 3-2 and looked at the counter attack to score a fourth but couldn’t. But the three points stayed with us and they are very needed.”
Romeu has now urged Saints to find some consistency. Pellegrino’s men are now unbeaten in six games but far from out of the woods yet with just two points separating them and the bottom three.
Saints face Liverpool on Sunday before a trip to Burnley, so the run-in won’t be easy.
“There are few points between positions in the table and we need to be consistent and get points home and away, especially teams that are near us,” he said.
“That will be a big difference – we are now six points away from them. It would have been another story if we lost today. It was massively important and we go again next week.”
There was a lot of emotion on Saturday at The Hawthorns as West Brom waved goodbye to club legend Cyrille Regis, who died last month aged 59.
It created an intense atmosphere, but Romeu was pleased with how Saints dealt with it.
He said: “We were not [overawed by the atmosphere]. It’s nice to see these things because this is football and we need to respect everything.
“He [Regis] was an amazing player in the past, but as soon as the game starts everything is gone. We work together. The start was not good but we carried on and got back in the game.”
Romeu admitted it wasn’t for Saints to stay calm in a thrilling encounter, which saw them go 1-0 down before coming back to lead 3-1 early in the second half.
Salomon Rondon scored for West Brom in the 72nd minute to set-up a tense finale, but Saints held on.
He said: “Yes we were calm.
"It was not easy because we knew winning today was all we needed. We’ve done well.
"We were not feeling well in our position, but we have been playing good football. We created chances and we are playing with skill and the way we wanted to before the match.”
After the Baggies went 1-0 up through Ahmed Hagazi in the fourth minute, Pellegrino was subject of chants of ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning’ by an element of the away end at The Hawthorns.
In reaction to that, Romeu said: “I had a coach when I was young who said whenever you open your mouth, they will shut it.
“You never know in football, things change constantly in a matter of one or two actions. That’s what happened, we changed it around and carried on playing well.”
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