Pochettino: It was no penalty

Pochettino: It was no penalty

Published Mar. 9, 2013 1:15 p.m. ET

Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino contested Norwich's late penalty award after Artur Boruc's last-gasp save earned his side a goalless draw at Carrow Road.

Grant Holt had a great chance to earn Norwich all three points when the home side were awarded a controversial penalty in stoppage-time, but Boruc denied the Norwich striker from the spot.

Pochettino confronted referee Mark Clattenburg at the end of the game and the Southampton boss was adamant the penalty should not have been awarded to Norwich.

"Yes [I was angry], it is not a penalty," Pochettino told Sky Sports, via a translator. "It was not [a penalty] on the pitch and not on TV.

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"Artur had a great save we saved one point and actually the team deserved to get three points."

Pochettino was happy with his side's battling display in difficult conditions at a snowy Carrow Road and with better finishing they could have taken all three points.

"Yes I agree with that, it has been hard for us to get goals, but I think at a difficult ground such as Norwich, I think my team played a good game in weather conditions for our type of football was not the best.

"The team fought really hard today and the result could have been worse with the penalty given in the last minute."

Pochettino has backed his strikers to find their goalscoring boots after failing to take their chances against Norwich.

He added: "What is really important is we keep on creating those chances and it depends on the effectiveness of our attacking players, that always comes and goes, and I am pretty sure my strikers will score as we have skilful strikers."

Southampton find themselves four points above the drop zone, sitting on 28 points, and Pochettino insists he has not set any points target for his side to secure survival.

"No, we haven't set a number of points we will try to get as many points as we can from the games we play," concluded Pochettino.

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