Ronald Koeman has told his side there is no time for them to feel sorry for themselves.

Saints trudged off the St Mary’s pitch looking a little disconsolate after their 3-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester City, who leapfrogged them into second place in the table.

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However, Koeman knows Saints are still having a tremendous season despite that result and need to dust themselves down in time to prepare to face Arsenal at the Emirates on Wednesday night.

He said: “They write off today because we didn’t show something different but if we are fifth in the league still we are very happy.

“Wednesday we will get a new opportunity to show the qualities.

“There is not time to be disappointed.

“We did too much mistakes and we were punished for that because they have a very strong team, very good players and we knew that before and we saw it today.”

Koeman knows Saints came up against a good team in City, and will face another in the shape of Arsenal, but doesn’t believe his side showed the Blues too much respect.

“Every opponent is different and I think Chelsea and Man City are the two strongest teams in the Premier League and you have to be good to have a good result and, once again, it wasn’t good enough,” reflected Koeman.

“I don’t think too much respect, if normally our ball position is one of our qualities you have to be confident in that.

“If I look to the first 10-15 minutes it looked a little bit nervous in the game but that’s not good because it makes them stronger.

“After that we looked a little more comfortable.”

Saints survived an early scare as referee Mike Jones booked Sergio Aguero for diving when he was clearly fouled in the area by Jose Fonte.

That came moments after he incorrectly yellow carded Victor Wanyama for what was a perfectly good challenge on Yaya Toure.

“Maybe it’s a penalty but I think the reason that the referee didn’t give that penalty is that he understands after why he give a fault to Wanyama and a yellow card when he played the ball and it was a fantastic tackle on the ball,” reflected Koeman.

“That was a mistake and maybe I have to see back that mistake on Aguero and that was a mistake.

“A little bit at the beginning you try and keep it in balance for both teams because if you give the first fault a yellow card that means a lot for the rest of the game and it wasn’t a game to give three yellow cards in 20 minutes.”