Middlesbrough overcome plane drama to bring Southampton down to earth

Middlesbrough overcame an injury crisis and an aborted plane landing to claim a 90th-minute equalising goal that damaged Southampton’s hopes of automatic promotion back to the Premier League.

The plane carrying the Middlesbrough squad was almost diverted to Birmingham airport on Thursday evening after a turbulent flight that head coach Michael Carrick said left some of his players “a bit tetchy”.

Certainly Southampton manager Russell Martin was feeling that after the frustrating draw – with his side missing a string of chances. 

“I was so angry straight after the game so I had to take some time to talk to them [the players],” Martin said. “If you are not going to be clinical at that end, you need to defend your end properly. We didn’t do that.”

It hurt even more with Leicester City having been beaten by Bristol City before kick-off. 

After failing to take a host of opportunities, with striker Che Adams particularly guilty, Southampton were caught by a sucker punch with Boro forward Emmanuel Latte Lath steering in a header.

“Latte is good in the air,” Carrick said, before smiling and realising how that sounded given the difficulty of Boro’s flight that – he jokingly added – led to some of his players hoping they would be making a road trip back to Teeside.

“We didn’t get to the hotel until late last night after an aborted landing,” Carrick revealed. 

“We were getting blown all over the place and we came down to land then had to take off as well and I’m thinking ‘oh god, it’s one of them’. 

“Then we were going to get diverted to Birmingham… It wasn’t pleasant.”

Southampton had gone ahead through Adam Armstrong’s early strike and although Boro hit the post it was a combination of bad finishing and some excellent goalkeeping from Seny Dieng that kept them in it until the last-minute goal.