RALPH Hasenhuttl revealed he asked Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers and the Foxes bench to let Saints run and score a goal following their “unacceptable” sportsmanship in the opener.
James Maddison opened the scoring in the second-half after referee Jon Moss had stopped play for an injury with Saints on the ball, but gave the drop ball back to the Foxes in error.
Leicester then attacked immediately and scored after Lyanco’s horror-show headers back to Alex McCarthy seeing Jamie Vardy’s shot, saved falling to Maddison on the rebound.
The Saints bench then asked Leicester to give the goal back and allow the game to continue level at 1-1, but this did not happen and the match ended up finishing 4-1 in their favour.
💬 Here's everything Ralph Hasenhuttl just said on that incident, asking Leicester to gift #SaintsFC a goal and respect."I don’t want to be a bad loser, we deserved to lose in the end."https://t.co/8zuQoxXbJH
— Alfie House (@AlfieHouseEcho) May 22, 2022
“I don’t want to speak about the performance today because we have all seen how this game was going and what happened today,” Hasenhuttl said, speaking about the incident.
“In my view in football, when you have the ball and the referee stops the play you get the ball back. Today it was different so we have to accept it, but it is hard to understand.
“The offer I made after the goal to let us score a goal, they didn’t take it. They pressed us immediately again so it was a different momentum.
“The first goal is the decisive moment in this game and if you concede it in this way it is hard to take. I don’t know why Vardy presses immediately, he didn’t know that he can’t.
“Then you have the Lyanco header and you think it is a normal game but it is not. We have the ball in their half, they get the ball back and can kick it to us and immediately attack. You always speak about respect and fair play or whatever, but when you act like this for me it is not acceptable.”
He continued: “What can he do, the opponent has to stop pressing the ball in this moment. Normally he should give it to us and then we can speak about how fantastic Leicester are and maybe they still would have scored three goals, but when you take it like this it sums it up what has happened to us for the last few weeks.
“There was an offer from our side to let us run and score a goal and then we keep on going at 1-1, this would be a sign or a message to everyone. I said it, let us run and let us score a goal. They didn’t do it, we tried it – Arma was running and looking to see if someone tackles him.
“Vardy didn’t know about it, he thought the game was stopped because of whatever. A tricky situation but an unnecessary one because we saw a good game but now we are speaking about a situation that shouldn’t be there.
“I don’t want to be a bad loser, we deserved to lose in the end but it’s clear such a situation changes the game and this is what is frustrating for me.”
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