Alan Pardew felt his side needed to sacrifice a bit of their “entertainment factor” to grab three points against Norwich.

The Saints boss had mixed emotions after the 2-2 draw – disappointment his side ended up with just a point despite leading twice, but enthralled by the fantastic game of football he had seen.

His professional head knew that once David Connolly had given Saints a 2-1 lead his side should have shut up shop.

But they paid the price for continuing to chase goals.

He said: “We were quite happy with the way it was going first half.

“We sacrificed a little bit of possession to catch them on the break.

“Second half they came out and caused us a lot of problems because their reaction to being a goal behind was first class.

“It forced us into a change but it was one we were comfortable with because Adam Lallana is as good as (Wes) Hoolahan in that position.

“He came up with some clever play to give Connolly the chance and it was a brilliant goal from him.

“We should have then made the game ugly and shut up shop.

“But we like the entertainment factor and gave them a chance to get back in it, because it was too open for me. I wasn’t looking for any entertainment after David Connolly’s goal, I can assure you.

“I would have happily locked up shop.

“We tried to but fair play to Norwich because they’ve got good players, they move the ball, they’re on the front foot, they’ve got their tails up at the moment and they got an equaliser which I personally think they deserved.

“We should have won the game because we got that second great goal, but fair play to them.

“I said to the players ‘you did Connolly a disservice’ because that goal should have been a winning goal and we should have locked it all up.”

He added: “We’re trying to get a team here that understands how to win games, but you can’t fault the quality of the game.

“It was a game that would have graced a higher division.

“Norwich were as good as us, there were chances galore.

“Defensively we were a lot better and it is a game we should have won because their two goals were disappointing on our part and our two were fantastic.”

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