RALPH Hasenhuttl responded to a number of social media frenzies between supporters, that were started after sections of his media answers were posted, by saying: “The problem is people are not listening.”

The Saints manager’s press conferences have been watched keenly over recent weeks following the controversial postponement of the St Mary’s clash with Newcastle United.

Hasenhuttl’s comments that there should be more transparency about who is and isn’t available, and why, caused arguments between Magpies and Saints fans when shared by social media publications.

Since then, the Austrian also revealed that the Premier League had discussions over the eligibility of newly-signed players in postponed matches and later labelled it ‘a lottery’ whether his own side would have enough numbers remaining to play on Tuesday.

Daily Echo: Che Adams is set to make a Saints return following a bout of COVID (Pic: PA)Che Adams is set to make a Saints return following a bout of COVID (Pic: PA)

Each of those caused a similar online fracas, with opposition supporters who had only received a slice of the story via social media posts thinking Hasenhuttl had been out of order.

But with sites such as Twitter only allowing for a certain number of characters in a post, it’s easy for us all to miss out context or take only a snappy bit of detail and then it’s portrayed not exactly as the speaker intended.

The 54-year-old admitted it is frustrating when people do not listen to all of what is said, and react only to the snippet they’ve seen.

Asked by the Daily Echo, Hasenhuttl explained: “Yeah (it is frustrating), but the problem is that people are not listening.

“They take a part of the interview and then say ah ‘it is like a lottery’, but it is, coming here in the morning you never know who is missing and this is right.

“But I have never spoken about postponing a game, you know us, as I said we have had two injured goalkeepers and signed another one before cancelling the game as we have a goalkeeper, we could have made the argument yeah with one out with COVID and the other injured but we didn’t do this.

Daily Echo: Saints signed 40-year-old Willy Caballero as emergency cover (Pic: Stuart Martin)Saints signed 40-year-old Willy Caballero as emergency cover (Pic: Stuart Martin)

He continued: “We try not to do this at the moment, you never know what happens in the future – suddenly we have 20 cases and when you have no players any more we will also ask for postponing a game.

“But at the moment we try everything to play and I think this (is how it) should be, we have tried to do this.

“I have not spoken about thinking of cancelling a game on Tuesday, we have two right-backs missing and none (available) at the moment but we never spoke about thinking the game would be postponed because we have injuries and a few COVID cases.”

After being directly asked by a journalist after the FA Cup third round win at Swansea City on Saturday if there were numbers enough in his depleted squad to play, Hasenhuttl explained that, now, you can never be sure.

Daily Echo: Ralph Hasenhuttl faced the media before and after Saints' win at Swansea City (Pic: PA)Ralph Hasenhuttl faced the media before and after Saints' win at Swansea City (Pic: PA)

This was then portrayed in different ways on social media and opposition supporters took an implication of him wanting the match postponed.

However, Hasenhuttl – who claimed he felt it was important to be able to speak honestly with media, following his FA charge for comments made after James Ward-Prowse’s red card at Chelsea in October – insists he is undeterred from speaking his mind.

“It should be possible to speak honestly in the media about your thinking,” he added.

“And if this is not happening anymore and things are getting turned around for, I don’t know what reason, to get some clicks or some traffic to social media platforms, then we have another problem.

“But not the problem of being honest.”