Southampton: Carragher slates attitude of Saints players in 9-0 Premier League loss to Leicester

Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher criticised the attitude of Southampton’s players after watching them fall to a record-breaking 9-0 loss to Leicester City on Friday evening.

The result saw the heaviest defeat in the club’s history and equalled the heaviest Premier League defeat of all time.

Having been a leading figure in Liverpool’s dressing room for many years, Carragher was clearly not impressed by what he saw and admitted that he felt for Saints boss Ralph Hasenhuttl.

Speaking in Sky’s post-match coverage, he said:

"“The manager will stand and fall by results but there is no way at 9-0 and the way they performed there that I’m going to point the finger at the manager. Some of those players there were a disgrace really. People think about the extra man in football and what it does it means it’s very difficult to go and win a game, but it doesn’t mean you can’t stop the opposition winning a game. I know it was 1-0 at the time but there’s no way that should not just finish 3-0. Going down to 10 men happens a lot in the Premier League but you don’t see 9-0.”"

It proved to be a brutal opening to the game for Saints as they fell behind and had a man sent off in the first 10 minutes.

Ben Chilwell slid home to put the visitors ahead, but a VAR check on an earlier challenge from Ryan Bertrand saw him shown a straight red before play restarted.

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From then on, Saints never recovered and played with no cohesion – hat-tricks from Jamie Vardy and Ayoze Perez and further strikes from Youri Tielemans and James Maddison compounding their misery.

With the clear message that Hasenhuttl won’t lose his job after this result via media sources close to the club, it will now be up to the players to respond and show some fight in two meetings with Manchester City this coming week.

Saints head to the Etihad twice in four days, with one game in the Carabao Cup Fourth-Round and the other the next top-flight game for Hasenhuttl and his side.

Fans will be wanting to see at least some progress and signs that their team are going to respond to the club’s worst ever loss.

There is clearly something very wrong somewhere along the line and steps must be taken to arrest the slump and allow enough time for the season to be rescued.

Mismanagement of transfers and poor spending have led to work that needs to be done off the field, but there may well be psychological issues that need to be addressed amongst the current squad.