Josh Sims: Southampton starlet vows to make Ronaldo Koeman eat his words
Everton boss claims he didn't know who Sims was when during the two seasons Dutchman was in charge of Saints
JOSH SIMS admits he wanted to prove former Saints boss Ronald Koeman wrong.
Sims, 19, made his senior debut for Southampton against Everton at St Mary's Stadium on Sunday, setting up the only goal of the match for Charlie Austin after 41 seconds before coming close to scoring himself.
Koeman had blasted the Saints Academy back in January claiming after going to an under-21 match against Chelsea that none of the players were good enough to play in the Premier League.
In the team that night was Sims and his comment came back to haunt the Dutchman as he returned to the South Coast following his controversial defection to Goodison Park in the summer.
Sims, who was born in Yeovil and poached by Saints from the Portsmouth youth set-up, was not even in the squad list in the match-day programme and only found out a hour before kick-off he would be in current manager Claude Puel's starting line-up.
Just 41 seconds after the kick-off he lifted the ball to Austin, whose header from close range flew into the back of the net past Everton keeper Maarten Steklenburg.
After the game Koeman said: “I wasn't aware of Josh Sims when I was here and he is not my problem."
Left winger Sims hit back: "There’s always going to be people in football that have different opinions. That’s just football. That’s life.
“Everyone has their own opinion. Ronald said what he said. It's just about proving him wrong really.
Sims, who was voted Man of the Match and had a second-half shot saved by Stekelenburg, said: "The early goal settled me down. I was just enjoying it and having a lot of fun out there.
";It was just everything you could wish for. I didn’t find out until about an hour before kick-off, so it was quite a short turnaround, but everything was just brilliant from the three points to the clean sheet.
Related stories
“It was a mixture of nerves and excitement, but the lads settled me down and said just play how you normally play and you’ll be fine.";
Sims staked his claim for a Premier League place earlier this month after ripping through Crawley Town with four assists in a 4-0 drubbing in the Checkatrade Trophy.
He said: “I just tried to keep it as normal as I could. It was obviously a big occasion, but didn’t want to do anything I don’t usually do and make it more complicated than it already was."
Sims, who scored on his England under-17 debut and created another to beat Holland 2-0 and has also represented the under-18s at international level, said: "It was my debut and I just tried to settle down and play my usual game. I think that paid off.
“It’s unreal really. You can’t put it into words.
“When you’re in the game you just zone out. You don’t really notice it, but when the home fans were singing my name it was just unbelievable. It’s what dreams are made of."