Ronald Koeman accused the Sheffield United bench of a lack of respect and said that was the reason why he refused to shake hands with Nigel Clough.

Koeman found himself arguing with the Blades bench on a fairly regular basis during Saints’ 1-0 Capital One Cup quarter-final defeat at Bramall Lane as Clough and his staff appealed vigorously for every decision.

Their actions saw assistant manager Chris Morgan sent to the stands in the second half.

At the final whistle Koeman refused to shake the hand of Clough, who made an angry gesture in retaliation.

After the game the Saints manager justified his actions, saying he hadn’t seen that sort of behaviour before.

“I shake hands with people who have respect for me as a coach, who have respect for the fourth referee,” said Koeman.

“I think the behaviour of the bench of Sheffield United, I never saw that.

“That was the reason why I didn’t shake hands.”

When asked about Koeman’s comments, Clough declined to fully respond.

Koeman shuffled his pack a little for the game last night.

Some of his five changes were enforced with Graziano Pelle suspended and Steven Davis injured, while he also opted to rest Dusan Tadic having admitted he was looking fatigued and named only six subs.

He also experimented with playing Ryan Bertrand in an attacking midfield role, before withdrawing Matt Targett and switching the on-loan Chelsea man to left back.

However,whatever he tried didn’t come off on a hugely disappointing night.

The problems just keep coming though with bookings for Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama meaning they are now suspended for the visit of Everton to St Mary’s at the weekend.

“It’s difficult,” sighed Koeman.

“In my opinion that’s one of the problems in the last few weeks – we have to change every time the team and with injuries with suspensions and, OK, suspensions is part of football and injuries is a part of football but we have not a lot of midfielders available.

“We had to make choices.

“Schneiderlin played finally 90 minutes. Normally he wasn’t allowed to play 90 minutes but we had to change and that was the problem and we knew that before the season.

“If we get these kind of problems in injuries and suspensions then it’s difficult.”