3:44pm Monday 8th March 2010
By Adam Leitch
ALAN Pardew insists Saints will not give up on their play-off ambitions despite their 2-1 defeat at Tranmere.
On a day when Huddersfield lost and Millwall only drew, Saints had a great opportunity to close the gap on the top six with victory at Prenton Park.
Had they won, they would have been 12 points off the top six with two home games in hand.
But defeat left them a further point off the play-offs as they now sit 15 points behind with a game in hand.
However, there are just 13 matches remaining of their League One campaign.
Though Saints could still make it, they will need a monumental run.
Pardew is not giving up hope just yet and is urging his side to get back to winning ways against former leaders Leeds at St Mary’s on Saturday.
He said: “We’ve still got a long way to go and we’ll keep fighting.
“This team is growing and we understand situations like this are going to come and we need to react.
“We’re disappointed because this was a game we wanted to win and we expected to win.
“Unfortunately the events have gone against us, missed chances and not being at our very, very best and the ref did have an influence on the game.
“That happens and you have to accept that as a team and bounce back.
“We have to bounce back against the best team in the league.
“But we proved against Norwich and against Huddersfield that we can beat the best, so we look forward to that.”
Saints fell behind at Tranmere after just three minutes but levelled eight minutes later.
Rovers grabbed a late winner via a controversial penalty.
“I didn’t think we were too bad in the first ten minutes but we just shut off from a set piece,” said Pardew.
“You can go through a game and look at scenarios but there were one or two just below their best and you have to ask yourself why that was and that’s my job.
“The boys are very, very disappointed because we put in two great performances and came here and gave a good account of ourselves against tough opposition.
“We didn’t get any breaks or any help from the referee, that’s for sure.”
He added: “Of course they were committed, they want to get out of the relegation zone.
“We dealt with that physical side of it.
“Our quality wasn’t as good as the last couple of games but you wouldn’t have expected it to be as good on a different type of surface.
“But we still created enough chances to have won.”
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/trade_directory/