Adam Lallana was left with a bitter-sweet feeling after Saturday's 1-1 draw with Exeter at St James Park.

The midfielder netted his first goal for Saints since the end of November in the stalemate, but admitted that despite his relief at his first goal in over two months, on this occasion he would have traded the goal for three vital points.

"It was nice to score, but I would much rather have taken the win and not been on the scoresheet. It's been a few games and it's been at the back of my mind, but in the end it is two points dropped," he said afterwards.

"We were in a leading position again and we let it slip, it was awful conditions out there but that's no excuse as it's the same for both teams.

"I thought we did quite well first half and we went in with the lead but we couldn't hold on to it. We had a couple of chances but in the end we just ran out of ideas."

The match was seen out on a pitch of poorer quality than the one Alan Pardew's men are used to at St Mary's, and Lallana felt that despite a promising first half in which Saints took the lead, it was Exeter that dealt with the tricky conditions better in the end.

"The pitch was difficult but it was the same for both teams, you have to adapt to the conditions and they seemed to do that better than us in the second half.

"We've got to look forward now, we have a couple of big games coming up so we have to prepare and get ourselves right physically for those. The upcoming games weren't a distraction for us we have a big enough squad to cope with all three competitions that we are in, but maybe we need to just be a little bit tighter as a team.

"The good teams win games one-nil so we just need to make sure that we pick up and I'm sure that between now and the end of the season we will do that."