Romeu: It’s tough to take
Oriol Romeu admitted the 2-1 defeat at home to Wolves was ‘tough to take’ following a controversial afternoon at St Mary’s.
The game looked to be going in Saints’ favour when Danny Ings’s sensational volley gave them a half-time lead, but the game seemed to swing in favour of the visitors following two moments of controversy after the restart.
Firstly, Ryan Bertrand was adjudged to have committed an offence when Nélson Semedo’s strike from close range inadvertently connected with his arm, with Rúben Neves converting the resultant penalty, before Ralph Hasenhüttl’s side were denied a penalty of their own shortly after when the ball appeared to strike the hand of Leander Dendoncker.
“I guess my only point here is if we are punished, why haven’t they been punished? I don’t understand why that decision hasn’t been made.
“If that rule is on that you need to be with your arms by your body, which is a bit unnatural because you need to move and turn and you need to use your arms for balance, we have to do it we will do it, but I don’t think it makes things easier for players to block shots or move naturally.
“We feel that we’ve been treated a little bit unfairly because we both had the same actions and we have been punished and they haven’t. I don’t know what we have to do.
“We know in the second half we probably gave them a little bit too much space and chances to get into our box too easily, but it is tough to take and is frustrating.
“We need to be self-critical of ourselves and see what we can do better especially in that second half.
“We knew at half time they were going to come a little bit higher and push and be aggressive, like they have been in the times we’ve played against them where we have dominated in the first half and they have always tried to react.
“We knew that was coming and I don’t want to put everything down to the decision but that affected [the game].
“The only thing I will ask from ourselves is the last 15-20 minutes where we needed to put more pressure on them, we didn’t move the ball quick enough or find players in the right positions and we didn’t have any clear chances. That’s something we need to definitely work on.”
