Alan Pardew praised his side's endeavour as they battled to the last again on Tuesday night.

Following on from Saturday's late dramatics at Yeovil, Saints gave it a everything against an Oldham team content to sit on what they had which made for an uphill challenge.

"We are disappointed as we did everything but score tonight," he said. "They made it very difficult for us, because when you have a team as resilient as Oldham were, it makes it even more difficult.

"I think we will have to expect a little bit more of that because we have such power. Teams are going to come here and make it very difficult.

"We put in a fantastic effort, we had to go right to the last seconds of the game on Saturday and it was a brilliant run. I feel sorry for the players, they have given everything they could, they couldn't do any more, but unfortunately the minus ten points and the results at the start of the season has left us on a knife edge to a decision or a break and we didn't get either of those tonight."

The manager was unhappy with the stop-start nature of the game, but again couldn't fault his players for that.

"Why I feel so poor tonight was not because of the team, it was because I wanted some help from the officials to rush them along and help us. I think they have a duty to the spectacle of the game and the paying public and they didn't do that.

"What I have got in front of me now is a first class team who have put in an incredible effort and they should be proud of themselves."

Pardew conceded however, that the play-offs are now the furthest away that they have seemed for a long time.

"It's made it a little more difficult. I think Huddersfield are one win away so it makes it very tricky."