RALPH Hasenhuttl has accepted full responsibility for the manner of his side’s defeat at Liverpool, admitting: “I sent them in the first-half with a not good plan and this did not work.”

The Austrian boss made three personnel changes and a switch of shape as Saints got battered 4-0 at Anfield.

Saints lined up with three central defenders, two central-midfielders flanked by wing-backs and a front three – but they were overpowered in almost every area of the pitch.

Hasenhuttl changed back to his usual 4-2-2-2 at half-time but the damage was already done, condemning the squad and supporters to a long journey home on the icy roads.

Speaking after the match, Hasenhuttl was honest about what he labels as “my mistake.”

He said: “We wanted to surprise them a little bit but we surprised ourself today I think.

“This is not a good idea against a team on fire and this was definitely my mistake if you want, I take it on my blood.

“Absolutely, I sent them in the first-half with a not good plan on the pitch and this did not work.”

Assessing the match, he added: “Yes, everybody has seen that we had no chances in the first-half, I think the way we played that.

“We tried man-orientated like we did against Chelsea but it didn’t work because the individual quality today, we couldn’t stop it.

“We had big problems in the half, spaces there beside the centre-halves where we could not stop them. This is the reason why we changed it at half-time but the game was gone at that moment, I think.

“In the second-half it was more stable, we played better football and had given them not so many chances in our normal shape what we normally play.

“I don’t know, we can play this game again and start like this and maybe we have more chances but it is still hard to defend against a team on fire because they still had chances and scored a goal from a set-piece.

“We can definitely play better than in the first-half, this is for sure – we had a lot of chances to be honest, this is a bit disappointing because we didn’t score here so far – it’s always tough to get something when you do not score.

“But even then I think against this team that is really on fire at the moment, they saved a few players during the week for the weekend so they knew how important this game was for them and they didn’t make the mistake they made against Brighton where they stopped after 2-0.

“They kept on going today and this was tough for us to defend.”