Ronald Koeman believes a sloppy start and individual errors were to blame for Southampton's 3-1 defeat at Manchester City on Saturday.
The Dutchman's team were 2-0 down at the Etihad Stadium inside 20 minutes, Kevin De Bruyne opening the scoring after indecisive defending from Maya Yoshida before Fabian Delph added the second.
Koeman saw improvement after the interval but admitted his side played into the opposition's hands and were punished for their lacklustre start.
"I think the start of the game was very poor; we had a lot of mistakes in possession," he said.
"The first goal, and some other chances for City in the first 20 minutes, we made ourselves and that was very disappointing.
"On 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.
"Maybe we were lucky it was only 2-0 after 20-25 minutes because we lost every ball in our ball possession
"At least we showed in the second half that we can keep the ball and we can have good ball possession.
"How we played the second half, I expect that from the beginning of the game."
