Ralph Hasenhüttl Laments 'Disaster' Injury to Michael Obafemi After Arsenal Defeat

Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhüttl believes that his side's missed chances played into Arsenal's hands during their 2-0 defeat on Sunday, with the Gunners'

Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhüttl believes that his side's missed chances played into Arsenal's hands during their 2-0 defeat on Sunday, with the Gunners' opening goal coming directly after Nathan Redmond's wasted opportunity.

Alexandre Lacazette's instinctive finish from a counter-attack put Arsenal into an early lead at Emirates Stadium and Henrikh Mkhitaryan doubled their lead after another Southampton mistake just 10 minutes later.

Sebastian Frej / MB Media/GettyImages

Sunday's defeat has left Southampton one point away from Premier League safety, and Hasenhüttl insists that their original game plan backfired because of the early setback.

"If you are 2-0 down after 20 minutes, it's easy for them because they get confident but it was difficult for us," Hasenhüttl said, quoted by Sky Sports.

"We had the first big chance, didn't score and on the counter they took the lead. That's the worst thing you can imagine for the mind and what we were looking to do.

"At half-time, we were thinking about getting a bit of pressure on them earlier, we did a bit better and won the ball early, had a couple of chances and if we scored it could've made it interesting, but we didn't so it was easy for them."

#saintsfc boss Ralph Hasenhüttl told me that Michael Obafemi’s repeated hamstring problem is down to his physique at the moment, his ‘posture’, as opposed to any mistake of judgement by anyone on his fitness

— Adam Blackmore (@AdamBlackmore) February 24, 2019

Another sour note for Southampton was an injury to teenager striker Michael Obafemi, who has a recent history of muscle injuries since breaking into the club's first team.

"It's a disaster for us," he added. "Nathan Redmond is the only player who really scores for the moment and if he has Danny Ings or Michael Obafemi it's not easy to defend against, but it's concentrating on him and that's why we made the changes at half-time. It's difficult now."