Mauricio Pochettino admitted Saints are on a bad run after suffering their third successive defeat but said the loss to Aston Villa was “one in 1,000.”

Saints were desperate to get back to winning ways after defeats at Premier League big boys Arsenal and Chelsea but they lost a game they dominated against Villa 3-2.

Villa enjoyed just 23 per cent of the possession and had only three shots on target during the 90 minutes - all of which resulted in goals.

On top of that an already injury hit Saints squad lost two more key men in the shape of Victor Wanyama and Nathaniel Clyne during the match.

Pochettino was seeing the positives though.

“It is very difficult because the team put in a great effort. I think they did very well,” he said.

“It’s a game you lose one in 1,000 and it happened that we lost it.

“We wanted to bounce back but we lacked what we always had – to be solid at the back. We were not solid at the back.

“When the opposition arrives four times and they score three goals you know that you’re lacking defensive solidity and not solid at the back.

“I can’t fault my players for anything because they put in a great performance.

“We tried as much as we could but it wasn’t to be.”

He added: “It’s clear that we are on a bad run at the moment, I am not going to negate that, but we have to be strong.

“We have to keep on working as we have been so far.

“We are experiencing the other side of football which is the negative side, but again we have to keep on working and recover because we have a very tough game on Saturday.”

Saints were guilty for the second game in a row of conceding a couple of soft goals and ultimately it cost them.

“We made some defensive mistakes and we were punished heavily for those defensive mistakes,” reflected Pochettino.

“Sometimes errors happen and they can be solved but we made two mistakes and that gifted them two goals.

“That put us on the back foot from then on and it was really hard to recover after making those mistakes.

“I’m not being hard, just on the situation. The situation is frustrating.

“I think we were unlucky and the players put in an amazing effort. I can’t fault them for anything.

“They played well, they put in a good shifts. They fought hard.

“The defeat was undeserved and overall I’m actually happy with my players in the sense that they performed well and tried their best.”

Saints now have the small matter of Manchester City at St Mary’s on Saturday with which to recover and try to stop a fourth successive defeat.

“The most important thing at the moment is to recover my players and recover the situation,” said the Saints manager.

“We need to recover from this defeat mentally, we need to think ahead of this game and 100 per cent positively for the game ahead against Manchester City.”