Hughes rages at rookie referee after Southampton hit new low
So the wait goes on. Southampton remain without a home win this season after Jose Holebas’s 82nd-minute thunderbolt swept away the prospect of victory, opened up by Manolo Gabbiadini’s first-half strike. Rubbing salt into the wounds, they were also enraged at a disallowed goal.
It all wrote a new, painful chapter in Southampton’s history, the first time the club have failed to win any of their first six home league matches of a season.
Mark Hughes’s side are now winless in their past eight matches, scoring just four and conceding 17 times. They have secured just one league win all season, and their shortcomings at home are now chronic.
Yet, it might have been so different. Substitute Charlie Austin appeared to have given his side a 2-0 cushion in the 68th minute, but rookie referee Simon Hooper erroneously ruled that the ball had gone in off team-mate Maya Yoshida, who was offside.
Austin said: “We scored a perfectly good goal that was ruled out for offside. That’s a joke. People go on about VAR, and they clearly need help. If this is the best, most-watched league in the world, give them the help they need.
“We deserved three points and would have got them but were let down by the official.”
Hughes was also bitterly critical. “It was ridiculous. Maya was about a foot and a half away from it. It was a matchdefining moment, a game-changer that they got wrong,” he said.
“We’ve been given an inexperienced referee today. Four games? Our game is just as significant to us as the Manchester derby. The referee was not up to the standard required. It’s hard to take.”
Southampton struck in the 20th minute after Wesley Hoedt’s header had been pushed away by goalkeeper Ben Foster.
From the resultant corner, the visitors’ Roberto Pereyra dawdled on the ball, which was prodded forward by Danny Ings for Gabbiadini to stroke home.
Eight minutes from the end, Southampton failed to deal with a cross from the left, a deflected clearance and there was Holebas to lash home, via a deflection off Cedric, from just inside the penalty area.
Southampton’s enterprise continued, but Watford also posed a threat and felt aggrieved they did not get a penalty when Ryan Bertrand appeared to bring down Nathaniel Chalobah just before the hour.
Javi Gracia, the Watford manager, took a rather different stance towards officialdom than his Southampton counterpart.
“I prefer to support the referees, it is difficult to do their job,” he said. “It wasn’t the best game. They created good chances, but we improved and showed character.”