Ronald Koeman defended his team selection as Saints slipped to their first Premier League away defeat of the season at Manchester City.

Koeman made four changes to the side that lost to Stoke the previous weekend.

One was enforced with Graziano Pelle serving a one-game ban, but the others were tactical as Maya Yoshida came in for Cedric Soares, who was not even in the match day squad, while Dusan Tadic found himself amongst the subs.

Yoshida’s error led directly to the first goal, while Saints improved immeasurably in the second half after Tadic was introduced.

However, Koeman insisted that the defeat had much more to do with individual errors than line-ups or tactics.

He said: “Of course we did it different but I think it’s not a question about the tactics, about players, about the line-up today if you make that kind of mistakes what we did in the first 20 minutes.

• Fonte gives Saints huge boost after Man City loss >>
• Man City 3 Southampton 1 - match report >>
• Saints' Etihad Stadium jinx continues - in pictures >>
• Man City 3 Saints 1 - as it happened >>

“At least we showed in the second half that we can keep the ball and we can have good ball possession.

“If you do that kind of mistakes then you know against City they punish you.

“Maybe we were lucky it was only 2-0 after 20-25 minutes because we lost every ball in our ball possession. That’s not about system or tactics, it’s about play the ball to the good colour.

“See the first goal – if you lose that on that position on the pitch then you know against players like Sterling they will punish you for that.”

The decision to replace Cedric with Yoshida was a tactical one and when asked how frustrating it was to see such a basic error leading to a goal after that call Koeman admitted: “That’s true. It’s true. It’s always difficult if you change a player in their position and he is making a mistake and they punish you.

“We had more players doing that kind of mistakes in the first 20 minutes.”