Nigel Adkins admitted he never felt Saints were going to score as they were beaten 2-0 at Bristol City .

The defeat was only Saints’ third in the league this season and the first time they have been shut out in the Championship.

Adkins didn’t bemoan the two deflected goals too much and confessed his side were not quite dangerous enough themselves.

He said: “We’ve come away from home and for the first ten minutes we had to make sure we stayed compact and in the game.

“ Bristol started very brightly but Adam Lallana had a great shot and David James has got down sharply to his left hand side to tip it round the post and I thought ‘here we go.’ “For the rest of the first half I thought we controlled the game. We passed it about without really penetrating enough.

“Second half we came out and we conceded a goal at a poor time just after half time. Yes it was a deflected shot but we had the ball in their half of the pitch.

“From that it was to and fro and to be honest I never thought we were going to score.

“Credit to Bristol City because they are on a good run at the moment and worked extremely hard to close us down and we tried to find that opening.”