Ralph Hasenhuttl said Southampton could have avoided conceding James Maddison’s goal had his team not been so honest. The Saints boss believed there was a foul in the build-up to Leicester City’s opener, Wilfred Ndidi dragging back Ibrahima Diallo around 35 seconds before Maddison fired into the roof of the net. The incident was deemed fair by referee Stuart Attwell, but Hasenhuttl believes that a free-kick would have been awarded if Diallo had not remained on his feet.
Ralph Hasenhuttl said “When he goes down it is maybe a foul but we are so honest all the time that we keep on running and that is not an advantage for us, We do it because we try to be the team that does not want to go down and this is the reason why we don’t get this foul maybe. It was a good action from Maddison, a fantastic goal. To be honest it was the maximum we could have given today, The quality of their finish was different today, from [James] Maddison, outstanding. Meanwhile, ours were not always the best and we had a few chances where the goalkeeper made saves. We did the maximum that we can do at the moment with the players that we have and with the injuries we are facing. I am proud of them because they tried everything. We were one down and we took more risks and then it came to counter-attacks and we tried to defend as much as possible. This is what I want to see, a team that is brave and competes against an international team. This is definitely tough to come here but we played a good game. They deserved to win. They had better chances and better finishing in the box. They had a guy who put the ball in the corner and we had chances and didn’t do that. It was a good game and we tried our best. We cannot be too down.”
