SAINTS boss Ralph Hasenhuttl admitted “you could feel the tank was empty” during their 1-0 defeat at Wolves on Saturday. The Austrian used all five of his available substitutes and even trialled three different formations during the course of 90 minutes. However, the visitors could still find no answer to Daniel Podence’s first-half opener and suffered a third defeat of the Premier League campaign. The clash at Molineux came as a third game in seven days, with home matches versus both Manchester United and Chelsea proceeding it.
Ralph Hasenhuttl said:” “We have a third game in the week and when we see the sprints, from Romain (Perraud) in the left-back position for example, we had outsprinted Chelsea on Tuesday. You could feel that the tank was empty and we had to do something. When you see the workload we put on the pitch in every game, it is not surprising that we use all five subs. It was necessary and the good thing is we can do this now and we have these players on the bench who can help us. We have a team that is working for each other. Even if we did not get something today, I cannot say that this was a big difference between the games.”
Saints had come from behind to defeat Chelsea 2-1 days prior, thanks to goals from Romeo Lavia and Adam Armstrong – while United held on for a 1-0 victory last weekend.
Ralph Hasenhuttl added: “You have to go all in to try and take something. I don’t want to go home with a 1-0 defeat, because this is always the toughest to take and that’s the reason why we try until the end. And I saw the belief, the behaviours that I wanted to see.”
