Ralph Hasenhuttl says Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s red card against Manchester City is a “disaster” for Saints.

The Saints skipper was shown a straight red deep into the 3-1 defeat at St Mary’s after launching into a dangerous tackle on City midfielder Fernandinho.

Hojbjerg will now serve a four-match suspension, ruling him out of Premier League games against Chelsea, Leicester and Everton as well as the FA Cup tie at Derby.

He won’t play for an entire month with the next game he will be eligible for coming against Crystal Palace on January 30.

Hasenhuttl, who has put much faith in Hojbjerg, naming his as captain, said: “The worst thing that could happen is that we lose one player.

“I put Oriol off and brought Valery on and we played with the young guys and Prowsey made a good job in the centre also and then came the worst moment of the evening – a red card for Pierre.

“It hurts us a lot. It’s a disaster for me.

“It was silly tackle on 85 minutes against Manchester City with the score at 3-1 where the game is gone normally.

“This tackle hurts us a lot because we miss him because he’s one of the best players we have at the moment in the centre so that hurts us enough.”

Hojbjerg scored a superb goal against City to get Saints back into the game but his loss will be keenly felt in the weeks ahead.

The suspension will be Hojbjerg’s third of the season, having been sent off against Leicester in August as well as having notched up five yellow cards.

It would suggest that Hojbjerg needs to add more discipline into his game and Hasenhuttl said: “I think he is normally a very clever and very smart player.

“He is one of the guys who loves to play in this philosophy we play now and that’s why I need him so much.

“In that moment I don’t know what he was thinking about.

“At first I thought it can be yellow also but it was a tackle that is not clever and not smart at that moment.

“It’s a pity but this matchday was not the best for us because all the other teams in our zone have won the game and we lost and lost Pierre for a few weeks so the worst thing happened.

“I told the guys ‘head up, our important period of the season will come in January and February after the games against Man City and Chelsea and we have to be prepared.’”