Published:

Hasenhüttl: Decisions hard to understand

Migration/65887096129

Ralph Hasenhüttl admitted the defeat to Wolves was a hard one to take and that he was struggling to understand some of the decisions that went against his side in the match.

Saints had looked on course for victory by half time at St Mary's, with Danny Ings's sensational volley having put them into a well-deserved 1-0 lead. However, the game then turned on two big penalty decisions, both of which went against the hosts.

First, Ryan Bertrand was controversially judged to have committed an offence when Nélson Semedo's shot inadvertently thundered into his arm from close range, allowing Rúben Neves to equalise from 12 yards out, before Saints then had a big appeal for a spot kick turned down when a ball into the area struck the arm of Leander Dendoncker at the other end.

"It's very frustrating," said Hasenhüttl, whose side then fell 2-1 behind to Pedro Neto's sublime solo goal. "It's hard to understand. We speak about rules – stick to the rules. I haven't seen today that it is on both sides the same. Again, I don't want to discuss too much about this. It's hard to take, and let's keep on going.

"Everybody has seen it, I don't have to speak about it. Everybody has seen the two situations.

"We have no points, we have again lost the game, and again I don't think we have deserved to lose, but that's the way in the moment and we've got to keep on going.

"At the moment, we get punished for situations that are unbelievable for me."

Another negative to the afternoon was the loss of Kyle Walker-Peters to injury late in the game, although Hasenhüttl was not yet aware of what the issue might be.

"I don't know also," he said. "It's not nice for us. If he's out again it will be horrible for us."