Morgan Schneiderlin said all four of the goals that Saints conceded at Newcastle could have been prevented.

The French midfielder had fired his side into an early lead at St James’ Park, but Mauricio Pochettino’s men then failed to go on and dominate the match like they had in their last outing, a 3-1 win over champions Manchester City.

After falling behind 2-1 before half-time, they equalised through Rickie Lambert, only to lose their momentum and their grip on at least a point after conceding a penalty and a calamitous own-goal.

“I just think we start the game brightly, we scored and then I think we didn’t play as we should,” said Schneiderlin.

“Every ball they played behind the back we were a bit in trouble and I just think we didn’t control first-half the game as we should after we scored.

“But then when you score two goals away from home you should get away with something.

“I think all four goals we could have avoided them, and it’s just a shame because we were on a good run, but now we need to bounce back, because we have got a very important game against QPR (on Saturday).”

Expectations surrounding Saints were high going into this match, following the fine performances in Pochettino’s first four games in charge.

But Schneiderlin insisted it was always going to be impossible for the players to maintain that sort of standard.

“We didn’t perform as well as we did in the last three, four or five games,” he said.

“But you can’t every week perform very well. Sometimes you have a day where some things go a bit not in your way, but you still need to win and you still need to manage something.

“We couldn’t do it today, but we need to bounce back, because QPR is a massive game.”