Mark Hughes admitted his disappointment that VAR cost Saints the chance of a morale boosting win at Leicester.

The Saints boss has long been an advocate of video technology to help referees, and the club as a whole were voicing their opinion it should be introduced immediately just weeks ago after Charlie Austin’s disallowed goal at St Mary’s.

However, the system was in use in the Carabao Cup fourth round tie at Leicester and proved to be controversial as Saints saw what would have been a Steven Davis winner overturned by TV ref Anthony Taylor for a highly dubious handball against Nathan Redmond.

Saints went on to lose the tie on penalties after it finished goalless at full time.

Hughes said: “I have said for a long time I am an advocate of VAR. I think they need help and in recent weeks we have demanded it is introduced immediately so we cannot complain too much.

“But the guys behind the screen and looking at the situations are the ones who sometimes get things wrong on the pitch.

“Sometimes what you have got to be careful with when you are looking at incidents in games is that if you slow it down to the nth degree then sometimes when you slow it down something that happened in normal time looks like it’s deliberate.

“Clearly it’s not when you play it in normal time as Nathan has run through with pace and there is no way he can avoid that ball.

“If a defender was in the box and somebody hit the ball straight at him from that distance it wouldn’t be given as a penalty because it would be too close to be given so why that’s been given I don’t know.

“From our point of view it’s a valid goal, it should have stood and we should have won the tie.”

For Hughes the problem is less the technology and more the people who are being employed to interpret it and reach decisions.

“I think Anthony Taylor was in charge and we feel he got a decision wrong at St Mary’s when he gave a soft decision at the end of the game against Brighton and we should have won that game,” insisted Hughes.

“He got that decision wrong and he’s got tonight’s decision wrong in my view.

“I suppose the more they use the system the better they will get but they’ve still got to get their view of the detail of the incidents better or get it correct.

“Clearly we had the best chances of the game and we should have won it comfortably.

“Young Michael Obafemi has had a great game I have to say but has missed a great chance but I’m not going to criticise him too much, I thought Michael and Yan Valery who came in did really well and gave us more energy and youthful enthusiasm and I think that helped us.

“Clearly at the end we had a fantastic strike from Gabbi and the keeper has made a wonderful save to keep them in the tie and at that stage with those three incidents you think it’s not going to be your night in the penalties and that’s how it panned out.

“As a performance away from home to a Premier League club I thought it was excellent.”

Hughes also had words of comfort for Manolo Gabbiadini.

The Italian came on in the final minute of the game and almost had a dream impact, forcing Danny Ward into a terrific save to turn his free kick onto the bar.

The keeper denied Gabbiadini again moments later with a decisive save in the penalty shootout.

“He will be fine,” said Hughes. “He was disappointed with the free kick that didn’t go in as much as the penalty but he will be fine.

“He came on and had a good impact and penalties are a lottery, we know that, and it’s a tough way to go out but I was more pleased with the performance because I thought it was a good effort from everybody.”