Mauricio Pochettino felt his side deserved a lot more than they got as they rounded off 2013 with a 2-1 defeat at Everton.

A successful year for the club threatened to finish on a real high as Saints dominated spells of the game at Goodison Park.

They drew level in the second half, substitute Gaston Ramirez driving home from distance to cancel out an early goal from Seamus Coleman.

However, parity lasted just three minutes before Romelu Lukaku scored what proved to be the winner.

“I think overall the game was a very good game with both teams proposing attacking football,” said Pochettino. “It was good going forward football.

“It is a shame because we leave with nothing and I think we deserved a lot more from this game.

“I think overall the team played very well and there were many phases of the game where we were superior to Everton.

“It’s clear that we are a young team but it’s a team that has a personality, it has a certain attacking style that it tries to always impose that attacking style wherever it’s playing.

“It always tries to go for the three points, to go for the win.

“It’s very important also that we try to recover the players who are missing and that will make us a lot stronger than we already are.”

Saints have endured a mixed time of it of late with the Boxing Day win at Cardiff their only victory in a tough last eight fixtures.

However, they are starting to get senior players back fit again and Pochettino insisted he was “not worried at all,” by recent form.

“We all saw what happened in this game and I think we deserved a lot more from this game,” he reflected.

“From the three shots they had on goal they scored twice.

“We created a lot of chances for ourselves but in the end we came away with nothing.”