RALPH Hasenhuttl was left to rue defensive lapses from his side as Saints were beaten 3-1 by Arsenal at St Mary's.

Despite taking an early lead through Stuart Armstrong, the Gunners roared back to victory thanks to goals from Nicolas Pepe, Bukayo Saka and Alexandre Lacazette.

Saints' defence has been impressive in recent weeks, but they made life too easy for the Gunners at times with uncharacteristic errors proving costly. There were also two enforced changes to the back-line with suspended Ryan Bertrand and injured Kyle Walker-Peters replaced by youngsters Jake Vokins and Yan Valery.

Discussing his side’s defensive problems, Hasenhuttl said: “We can defend better, this is what we have shown, yes. But today it was not good enough.

“The first two chances we gave them was a little bit too naïve I think. We tried to play football more in the last game and this was not always perfect.

“This is the way we play football and in the past we did it much better and we can do it much better than we did it today. We never found the right balance today and we must do it better.”

He added: “The opponent was strong today also. They put it behind and had some quality in front.

“But I never had the feeling we cannot win this game. Although we didn’t play with the best XI what we normally play.

“Overall I think the chances were still there, but we gave the goals away too easily.”