CAPTAIN James Ward-Prowse admitted “the table doesn’t lie” as Saints sit bottom of the Premier League and added Sunday’s West Ham defeat “summed up our season”.

However, the skipper is adamant that Saints were the better team in the 1-0 loss at London Stadium, which sees the St Mary’s outfit now four points adrift of safety.

There is still football to be played but time is running out to make up ground on their relegation rivals, as other clubs pick up valuable points and retain a game in hand.

Saints have been bottom since November, climbing up to 19th briefly in March under Ruben Selles before dropping back down again by next weekend.

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They are, as expected, the strong favourites to go down to the Championship. The Daily Echo asked Ward-Prowse if Saints are truly as bad as the table makes them look.

Daily Echo:

“The table doesn't lie, but I think if you look at the game on Sunday we were by far the better team,” Ward-Prowse responded.

“I think we had control of the ball. We had good possession and we felt in control. We never felt like we were up against it like we have been at times this season. So we can take positives from that.

“But at this stage, it's not about playing well. It's about winning games and it doesn't really matter how you do that. You’ve got to keep clean sheets and score goals and we didn't do that.”

He added: “I think any difficult situation that you're in you need togetherness, you can't afford to go your separate ways and that's including the fans as well.

“We know we're not at the levels where I think we should be and where we should be together but we have to stick together, we have to look forward and there's still a lot of football still to be played.”

There was another personal accolade for Ward-Prowse, who levelled the club record for Premier League appearances (329) in February at Leeds United’s Elland Road.

Stepping foot onto the turf in the capital last weekend, Ward-Prowse made a 400th appearance for the club in all competitions.

“I was made aware of it before the game so it was a real nice moment,” he reflected. “It's not something you think of when you start out as a six or seven year old in the academy.

“To be stood here now with 400 appearances for this club, it’s fantastic. Obviously, it was a disappointing result.

“I think we started the game really well, we were in control of the game, we executed it really well, frustrated the crowd, built it up really well.”

Ward-Prowse continued: “But I think it summed up our season and where we are as a team that we've had good moments.

“We just don’t capitalise on them and then we concede an easy goal at the other end. From that position, it's 10 times harder to get back into the game.”