SAINTS’ manager Ralph Hasenhuttl waited until the 80th minute to make changes in 3-1 Everton defeat but said: “I wanted to change immediately when it was ten minutes after the half time and then the team showed that we are back in the game.”

Everton completed a second-half rout courtesy of Richarlison, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, with Saints 2-1 down before a change was made despite Adam Armstrong’s first-half opener.

Ibrahima Diallo and Nathan Tella were introduced ten from time but Calvert-Lewin added that third just moments later, killing the game off before final sub Nathan Redmond could get on.

But Hasenhuttl has revealed that he thought about making changes early in the second-half, after the first Toffees goal, but was convinced by the team’s performance otherwise.

Speaking after the match, he said: “I wanted to change immediately when it was ten minutes after the half time and then the team showed that we are back in the game.

“It is difficult sometimes with changes you can’t make reverse, so we tried to stay, they didn’t have a lot of chances in this time and then in the last ten or fifteen minutes after we made changes they had many more chances.

“We had been feeling that after 10 or 15 minutes being really under pressure we could lift us a little bit shortly before changing, but then I thought okay the guys have found back to the game that we played in the first half.

“Maybe a goal or something to find back to the game, but then to concede a goal that way shot outside the box, I don’t know if there was a chance to save that.”

Everton’s impressive second-half performance seals an opening day defeat for Hasenhuttl’s Saints – with the club now having failed to win an opening day fixture since 2013.

Up next is the task of Manchester United at St Mary’s, with the Red Devils dispatching Leeds 5-1 today.