Ralph Hasenhuttl urges Southampton not to be over reliant on in-form Danny Ings

Ralph Hasenhuttl made clear the importance of Danny Ings to Southampton after he scored the only goal at Burnley on Saturday night but insisted the Saints cannot afford to rely on their in-form striker.

Ings struck against his former club just five minutes in as Southampton earned their first league points of the season.

It was a 36th Southampton goal in 71 appearances for Ings, and the 28-year-old has now accounted for 46 per cent of the Saints’ goals since the beginning of last season.

Hasenhuttl was clear the striker would not be sold, but said his side need to work as a unit in attack.

“I’ve already given a very, very clear answer to this question – we will have Danny for a very long time with us and this is all I can say,” he said on the player’s future. 

“I spoke very often about his development. We must always pay attention that we are more than only Danny Ings. He scores for us but also we work for him, Che (Adams) makes a fantastic assist.

“We worked very hard and its important, then we play together we are a good team.

“It’s important for him to stay fit and then he’s always there to score.”

A week after a humbling 5-2 defeat to Tottenham, Hasenhuttl punched the air at full-time.

“To get a Premier League win is always difficult,” he said. “Now we have the first one this season and it’s an important one. To win here is not so easy.

“I think we have taken the time during the week to get better. We haven’t been good enough but if we keep on doing what we did today we have the chance to win more games and this is the goal.”

Sean Dyche was marking his 400th game in management but had little reason to celebrate as his side remained without a point this season.

Chris Wood had a penalty appeal turned down in the first half, and then saw a goal ruled out for offside in the second half – a marginal call which could not be reviewed by VAR because the assistant flagged and play was whistled dead by Andre Marriner before the ball crossed the line.

“I’ve spoken to (fourth official) Michael Oliver and he said he shouldn’t have blown up but it’s not really that acceptable,” Dyche said.

“We’ve all been specifically told to make sure players play through every moment and Woody played through the moment and scored a goal.

“While that goes on the linesman’s flag goes up and the ref blows up. I haven’t seen it in detail, I think it was close.

“I don’t want to make the game about that but they are important moments, two decisions could have gone the other way.

“We didn’t find the big moments tonight which we often do. Neither did they really, (Nick) ‘Popey’ had hardly anything to do so those decisions from officials can count and they maybe did tonight.”

Dale Stephens made an immediate debut with seven first-team players out, including James Tarkowski who continues to be linked with a move away.

“It’s not an ideal situation,” Dyche said. “That’s an obvious challenge for me as a manager and for the players. They were fully committed. First half was a little bit off but the second half was a good performance.

“The group need some support, first in-house support – we want to get players back fit, it’s a long list of very good players in the market – and secondly we’ve got to look to work in the market, if we can do that then we need to do that too but that’s not my decision.”