Mark Hughes has expressed his dismay at two incidents in Southampton's FA Cup semi-final defeat to Chelsea which he felt let the Blues off the hook.
Chelsea ran out 2-0 winners over the Saints in Sunday's clash at Wembley, Olivier Giroud opening the scoring on 46 minutes and Alvaro Morata doubling their tally eight minutes from time.
However, believes that the 72nd-minute incident in which Willy Caballero fumbled the ball over the line should not have culminated in Martin Atkinson penalising Charlie Austin for a push.
In addition, the Welshman pointed out Giroud's apparent handball from a corner three minutes earlier, which went unpunished, and stressed that Southampton were "hard done by" due to the referee's decisions.
"In the first half we didn't quite affect Chelsea as much as we talked about before the game so we were reasonably pleased to come in at half-time with it goalless," Hughes told BT Sport.
"Coming out and conceding early... the response was very good, obviously we're disappointed by the nature of it, after 30 seconds or so. We got a response but we didn't get any luck.
"The keeper Willy Caballero made a glaring mistake, he dropped it down his chest - I'd have thought that was a clear situation that needed to be reviewed. I don't know how they made that decision so quickly, Charlie Austin did nothing wrong. And there was a handball from the following corner by Olivier Giroud, so we feel hard done by.
"Conceding the first goal was always going to be detrimental. We took a centre-back off and they were able to capitalise with a second goal. We have a huge game next weekend and the focus now is putting this disappointment behind us very very quickly."
Southampton, who sit 18th in the Premier League table, host Bournemouth next Saturday.
Giuseppe Labellarte
