GORDON STRACHAN has declared he wants to "change the history" of Saints.

But the Southampton manager believes the consecutive 1-0 defeats against Middlesbrough and Newcastle are the sort of games his team MUST win if they want to realise his hopes for the club.

Strachan has already guided Saints to their best-ever Premiership position and an FA Cup final.

But he clearly believes regular top-half finishes and a return to the club's greatest-ever days in the early 1980s are now possible.

He said: "I want to change the history of this club so these results are a big disappointment to me.

"If we want to get out of the relegation idea and just above relegation we've got to come and win, but in the last few weeks we have got beat 1-0 twice.

"We are really disappointed with the last two games.

"There was a chance to change the history of this club and we must win games like this and last week 1-0 and not lose 1-0."

Strachan was disappointed with some of his team's passing - as he was in the home loss to Boro the week before - and insisted his players "only had themselves to blame."

"Our problem was retention of the ball - we had it in good positions and we gave it away," he said.

"We have only got ourselves to blame. As a group the front six were not at their best - we just needed to be a bit braver on the ball.

"If we had been on our game I felt we could have done something.

"It was a fair result as we didn't have as many chances as them.

"I didn't think Newcastle were as good as they were against Arsenal, that is why we are feeling bad about ourselves as we felt there was a real opportunity there.

"We played some scared football in the first half which I didn't like, and then we became a bit braver on the ball.

"But we kept plugging away and we were fighting well at the end."

An Alan Shearer goal sealed the points for Newcastle and Strachan added: "There were two people who made the difference and one of them was Alan Shearer.

"He was very good. On the other one, people will have to make up their own minds.

"But I want to talk about the positives of the game and Alan did very well. We contained everything else very well, but Alan's the one."

It is thought Strachan was also referring to what looked like a foul on Kevin Phillips in the build-up to the Newcastle goal.