Mohamed Salah scores for Liverpool in victory at St Mary's on Friday Night Football
Saturday 6 April 2019 09:01, UK
Ralph Hasenhuttl was frustrated with an offside goal and a missed opportunity as Southampton lost 3-1 to Liverpool on Friday.
Saints took the lead after nine minutes of the Premier League clash at St Mary's through Shane Long.
However, Long spurned an excellent chance for a second when he failed to turn in a cross and Liverpool levelled before half-time through Naby Keita, with Mohamed Salah having been offside in the build-up.
Liverpool then scored twice in the final 10 minutes to snatch victory and leave Hasenhuttl thinking about what might have been.
"It doesn't feel good," the Southampton boss told Sky Sports. "The guys are frustrated, but they showed a very good performance. It's a long way to go if you score after nine minutes against this team with this quality.
"It would have been interesting if we got the second goal, Shane had a big chance, and it was a period where Liverpool were a little bit surprised by us I think.
"We didn't [score again] and then 1-1 was offside before which was a pity, but you have to say you need a perfect game against such a team and the perfect game you have if you don't make it easy like we did in the last 10 minutes.
"They deserved to win because they were the better team at the end but I think we can be proud of our team."
The result leaves Saints in the relegation battle as they are five points above the bottom three with six games left to play.
Hasenhuttl saw positives in their display against Liverpool though.
"I think it was important they believed in what they're doing. They showed we had a very good game plan and the guys found very good game management, a good balance of finding the decisions to play or not take a risk.
"They had nearly no chance to win balls early against us. It was a good start but it was not enough."
