Eriksen on St Mary's loss

Christian Eriksen said the players were in a state of shock after defeat at Southampton on Saturday.

Everything looked rosy at half-time at St Mary’s. We’d dominated play, scored through Harry Kane, hit the woodwork twice and created chances. Dele Alli impressed on his return from injury, our front four were causing problems and defensively, we were in control.

It all changed in the second half. Southampton made changes, pushed on, pressed us and started to create chances, eventually equalising on 76 minutes through Yan Valery. Five minutes later, an unlikely turnaround was complete when James Ward-Prowse curled home a free-kick.

“You shouldn’t lose games like that and we can’t in the position we’re in,” said Christian. “We had a very good first half but everything changed in the second half. We threw it away, really.”

So what changed? “They went to press a bit more, we dropped a bit, played more long balls than we did in the first half and never really got control of what was going on. That’s why we lost compared to the first half.

“We had a lot of chances and should have finished it off. You can create as many chances as you want but sometimes the opponents create one or two chances and they score. It’s a big blow because we were in control but what could go wrong went wrong in the second half and that leaves a bad feeling.”

Christian conceded that the ‘bad feeling’ was even worse as our next match isn’t until 31 March - FA Cup weekend followed by an international break - when we take on Liverpool at Anfield.

“It’s a long wait until the next game, some of us will have internationals but this week it will be tough to get over it," added Christian. "Again, we need to look ahead. What’s happened has happened and all we can do is try to get back on track.”