Saturday 12 March 2016 20:35, UK
Mark Hughes was left frustrated after Stoke's failure to heed his pre-match instructions allowed Graziano Pelle to score twice in Southampton's 2-1 victory.
The Stoke manager said his side discussed their opponents' threat from set-pieces in detail before the game at the Britannia Stadium, and described the defending as "infuriating" as Pelle got free to nod Southampton in front from a corner after 11 minutes.
The headed goal was the visitors' 12th of the season - more than any other Premier League club - and it was an area Hughes said he identified ahead of Saturday's game.
"We had to try and force the issue to get back in the game, which in the end got away from us in the first half," Hughes said. "It's very difficult to come back after they score from the first corner they have, and after we talked at length about the balls they put in the box and which areas they look to hit.
"They have scored a lot of goals this year from a similar type of position when players get across people. You have to deal with those balls, and he has attacked it well, but we talked about it and it should not have caused us a problem.
"You can make mistakes and I understand that, it's just infuriating when you have discussed situations, shown videos on it and made them understand that it is an area we have to be really vigilant given the personnel Southampton have.
"Unfortunately we weren't because we didn't do our jobs well enough and that's the disappointment."
Pelle added his second 15 minutes before the break, and Stoke couldn't overturn the two-goal deficit despite Marko Arnautovic's strike just after half-time.
And Hughes, who felt goalkeeper Jack Butland will be disappointed not to have saved Pelle's second, said his side left themselves too much to do.
"At 1-0 down you have to regroup but before you know it we are two down," he added. "Jack will probably think he should have done better on the shot, but even before then it was too easy for them to get in our box and have a shot.
"We got one goal back and I'm a little bit frustrated with the referee that he didn't get on top of the game in terms of Southampton trying to slow everything down, as you would when you're ahead in an away game. They tried to stop the momentum and the referee needs to step in there, but he didn't."
Ryan Shawcross played the full game as he made his first appearance since January, and Hughes admitted he hopes his captain has not suffered any setbacks.
"Ryan looked a little bit stiff when he came off and we hope that's not a recurrence of it," he said. "He did OK, but it's difficult at the moment because we're struggling with injuries to our back four.
"It was a bit makeshift with Geoff Cameron at right-back, but in the end we didn't quite have enough to get back on level terms, which given our second-half performance I felt we deserved."
