Russell Martin claimed winning the Championship play-off final with Southampton was one of the best days of his life after he put one over his old Norwich boss Daniel Farke.
Martin was Norwich captain when Farke arrived in 2017 and the Leeds boss demoted him to the Under-23s before he left the following year.
Adam Armstrong scored the only goal with his 24th of the season at Wembley and Martin thanked Southampton majority owner Dragan Solak and his board for believing in him.
“I feel immense pride in what we’ve achieved,” said the Saints boss after winning his first promotion as a manager and the sixth in his career. I feel grateful the owners gave me the opportunity in the first place.
“I wasn’t a sexy appointment, but they were brave enough to give me the opportunity and hopefully, we have repaid them with a day they will remember forever. It’s certainly one of the best days of my career for sure. I feel nothing but gratitude and a lot of love for the people I work with.”
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Martin was delighted for his players and says they were left broken by relegation last summer. “I thought the toughest bit was at the start of the season when I saw how much the group had been fractured and were not together after relegation,” he said.
“So to watch them show the love they showed each other is amazing. “I’ll probably end up alone in bed tonight, crying my eyes out and feeling nothing but love for them.”
Gutted Farke told his players to use this hurt as motivation to win promotion next season. Leeds lost for the sixth time in six play-offs attempts on the 35th anniversary of Don Revie’s death and Farke said: “It couldn’t be worse, we’re suffering a lot in this moment and deeply disappointed.
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“After you lose the final when you’re just one game away, it’s too early for those upbeat messages, no one wants to hear it. You have to allow them to be down, but when you look at the bigger picture, the way we played this season, we got to 90 points, there’s no reason to dwell on it.
“We’ll take this as extra motivation to come back stronger and to be able to call yourself again a Premier League side is something we want. We had more possession, more shots, more expected goals, but Southampton defended like they had knives between their teeth and we’ve not make it back to the Promised Land.”
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