Matthew Le Tissier and Dave Jones today played down talk of a rift after the Saints star reacted angrily to being substituted in the 1-1 draw at home to Liverpool.

There were gasps of shock from the crowd as Le Tissier swiped away the offer of a drinking bottle when he climbed into the dug-out on 53 minutes.

But afterwards Le Tissier dismissed the incident saying only: "It was a storm in a tea-cup. It was frustration - nothing more."

Jones insisted he did not even see the incident and said: "People can make of it what they want but I did not see anything untoward.

"Someone told me about it but he has a right to be upset. I would not expect any player to be happy at coming off.

"But there are no problems. He is part of the squad and on another day he will play a key role. I just felt it was the right thing to do at the time.

"Stuart Ripley proved it was a good change when he came on. We looked tighter and more potent going forward.

"He worked his socks off and might have started but he only came back into training on Friday. I had five or six other players who were disappointed not to be starting or even on the bench."

Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier left England striker Michael Owen among his substitutes amid reports that he had picked up an injury in training.

Those gathered weight when he limped off ten minutes from time with a recurrence of a hamstring problem casting into doubt his role in England's vital Euro 2000 play-off against Scotland next month.

Houllier suggested he is likely to be out for around a fortnight and could be back in time to line up for England but Kevin Keegan will still remain concerned about the form and fitness of one of his star men.

Ironically Liverpool's equaliser, which cancelled out the 39th-minute lead given to Saints by Trond Soltvedt, came within a minute of the Merseysiders going down to ten men, having already used all three substitutes.

Jones added: "I was surprised and pleased that Owen was not playing from the start and when they went down to ten men I thought that was it and we would get the three points then.

"But we suffered another lapse in concentration. We don't so much shoot ourselves in the foot as the head sometimes. We have got players to score but we need to keep the back door shut."

The November 20 home game against Tottenham is now a sell-out with most of the tickets snapped up before the Liverpool game.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.