Hasenhüttl: Not clinical enough
Ralph Hasenhüttl admitted his Southampton side were not clinical enough as they fell to a 2-1 defeat to Everton at St Mary’s.
Despite opening the scoring just four minutes into the second half in SO14, two goals in quick succession from Everton saw the Merseyside outfit walk away with all three points on the south coast.
“I think we had a good start to the second half,” claimed the boss. “We were on the front foot a bit more.
“I think in the first half we tried to give a bit of early pressure but with the ball we were a bit hectic. Maybe we're a little bit calmer, create some more chances in the first half but the decisive part of the pitch is the opposite box.
“We didn’t have the clinical finish today and we had so many chances where we could’ve scored three or four goals today and we didn’t do it, this is the thing that is missing in our game.
“The Premier League is brutal; it can show you immediately what is happening when you don’t score these goals and then you concede them. It also, in a way, happened far too easy.
“I think it was a decisive moment in the game. We had a big chance after a good ball high up the pitch and one against one against the goalkeeper, Ché knows that was a big moment.”
Having made six changes to the starting eleven that lost to Aston Villa last time out in the league, it was a chance to witness a fresh Southampton line-up in front of a home crowd.
“I think we had two weeks to work with the group that was here, we gave a lot of players who have been here the chance to play but, in the end, we need every player in the moment.
“We have a group and a lot of games coming up now and it’s important for us to give everybody a chance to play.
“We all know that in such moments when you go in the lead, you have to be super concentrated. Even the foul at first was stupid and then it is such an easy goal from the set-piece.
“It’s something that can kill your game. I think we have still shown resilience and tried to push back immediately and had the chances but then I think the second goal was hard to take.
“We never stopped trying and we never stopped believing we can score goals but you need to force the luck and we didn’t have that last decisive shot on goal.”
