Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has admitted he made a mistake in switching to a back-five for his side’s trip to Anfield on Saturday.
The Austrian, whose side concede inside the first two minutes and found themselves 3-0 down at half-time, was forced to revert to a four-man defence after the interval in order to try and relieve the constant pressure from Jurgen Klopp’s side.
“We wanted to surprise them a little bit and we surprised ourselves. It wasn’t a good idea against a team on fire,” the 54-year-old said after the game (via Liverpool Echo).
“It was my mistake, I take it on my part. I’m responsible for this defeat. I sent them out on the pitch with not a good plan and it didn’t work.
“We tried it against Chelsea but it didn’t work here because we couldn’t stop what they did. We had big problems with the half-spaces in the centre and we couldn’t stop them.
“That’s why we changed at half-time but the game was gone. In the second half, you could see it was more stable and we played better football in our normal shape and we didn’t give away that many chances.
“But it’s still hard to defend against a team on fire. We can play better than in the first half, that’s for sure.
“Liverpool are super hungry, they are super motivated, they are in an unbelievable flow at the moment and to stop them, I think there is no team who could come here and not have problems, no matter how you play and what you do,” said the Southampton boss.
Hasenhuttl may be right to accept the blame for the defeat, but the potency of our attack was evident once again and each week teams are struggling to contain our frontmen.
Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Diogo Jota occupy the top three spaces in the Premier League scoring charts and we have scored two or more goals in every game this season except the 1-1 draw at home to Chelsea back in August.
Long may the free-scoring performances and the clean sheets continue.