FORMER Premier League star Danny Murphy weighed in on the incident which led to Saints throwing away three points against Brighton.

Boss Ralph Hasenhuttl said keeper Alex McCarthy had to be “more professional” after apparently not informing the bench he picked up a hamstring injury against the Seagulls.

With Saints defending a free-kick late on, James Ward-Prowse rushed back to protect the opposite side of the goal to the keeper.

The Saints captain then played onside Neal Maupay to hammer in a last-gasp equaliser and make the final score 1-1 at St Mary’s.

But Murphy, who played more than 400 games in the Premier League, insisted it was “not fair” to criticise McCarthy and blamed Saints’ management for the incident.

Speaking on Match of the Day, he said: “I’ve not got a problem generally with managers digging out a player when they are upset but I think this is unfair.

“You see him pull his hamstring, or tweak it anyway. You can see other players are taking goal-kicks for him – that means there is a problem. You can see that as a manager.

“Free-kick in the last minute of the game, (Kyle) Walker-Peters gets told he doesn’t need him on the line – off you go.

“Ward-Prowse looks to take it upon himself, we don’t know for sure, to get on the line and then plays Maupay onside.”

Asked simply who was to blame for the debacle, former Liverpool and Fulham man Murphy replied: “The management because they have seen him not being able to take the goal-kicks.

“Now if he didn’t see that, what’s he doing? It’s not fair to dig him out. He obviously can’t kick the ball, he can make saves.

“But there’s a young goalkeeper on the bench (Harry Lewis) who could have come on. If you can’t take goal-kicks and the manager has seen that, why is he blaming the goalkeeper?”

Former Tottenham and England midfielder Jermaine Jenas added: “Usually there would be a conversation between manager and goalkeeping coach.

“You’d say ‘what’s going on? Is he all right?’. The goalkeeping coach runs round and goes ‘are you okay?’.

“That obviously didn’t happen.”