Caspar Jander left wanting more at Southampton after star role against Manchester City

Southampton are no now longer the Championship's best-kept secret.

Instead, they became the media darling of the wider footballing world - away from just being praised in the bubble of the EFL - when they pushed Manchester City all the way in the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday evening.

Tonda Eckert's men did come up short 2-1 to Pep Guardiola's side in the end, as Nico Gonzalez's 87th minute thunderbolt spared City blushes, but Southampton would recieve widespread acclaim at the full-time whistle for their battling nature.

Indeed, even Guardiola himself would single out the Championship underdogs for praise in his post-match musings.

Caspar Jander's performance would also be subject to lots of outside praise at the full-time whistle, with the German - who came into the starting XI to make up for Flynn Downes being suspended - classily going about his business throughout.

Jander's standout performance vs City

Jander didn't look intimidated at all by the occasion of the FA Cup semi final, as he seamlessly fit into Eckert's first team plans.

He was at the heart of Finn Azaz's dramatic opener as he valiantly won the ball, after a haphazard pass from Guardiola's men was snuffed out by the alert number 20, before the Irishman would curl a sumptuous effort past James Trafford.

On top of offering energy and determination in the spades, which saw the lively German win eight ground duels, Jander would also not look out of the place in the middle of the park when spraying the ball about confidently.

Ending the game with an 89% pass accuracy, the obvious disappointment on Jander's end would've been that his heroic display didn't culminate in a famous FA Cup win.

Still, even as Eckert chewed over the pain of the FA Cup defeat, he was quick to praise the ex-Nürnberg battler at the full-time whistle, stating that he is "peaking" at the perfect possible time for his troops.

With Jander also being noted as being a "very important" figure in more crunch games to come, as Southampton need to win against Ipswich Town on Tuesday night to keep their automatic promotion dreams alive, Eckert will further love the level-headedness of his man of the moment, who was left wanting more at the close of the FA Cup defeat.

Jander has been left wanting more

Southampton must put the pain of this defeat to good use, as it should make Eckert's camp even hungrier to win promotion, knowing how demoralising coming up short on the big stage is.

Jander certainly didn't want to bask in the glory of his battling performance against City for too long, when speaking after the heartbreaking Wembley win, with his sights now on trying to help his team pick up two league wins on the spin, to secure a dramatic automatic promotion.

He boldly said, right at the close of the disappointing loss: "I think the right mindset is that we can take pride out of this game and be ready for the next two games.

"We need to take six points and see how we get on [in the automatic promotion race.]"

Arguably, this is exactly the right mindset to have, as Southampton becoming too drunk on all the praise they're receiving, could prove to be detrimental to their promotion chances.

They must immediately enter back into the bread and butter of the Championship, ready to win, with Jander desperate to be selected again, as he tries to put in another spirited display, in yet another huge match in his team's season.

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