Alan Pardew admits Southampton deserved victory

Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has admitted that his side deserved to lose to Southampton today.

Saints moved out of the bottom three with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Newcastle at St Mary's thanks to goals from Adam Lallana and Gaston Ramirez.

Pardew believes that his side need to dig deep to turn things around as they continue to deal with injuries to key players such as Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa.

He told BBC Sport: "It was tough for us. I thought the intensity of Southampton was hard for us to cope with. In the second half, we should have equalised to square it up, although it might not have been deserved.

"We are struggling at the minute. Southampton deserved to win today and we have got nothing to argue about. We are not playing with any great confidence.

"Everything seems to be going against us and we have to be tough. We all need to grow very quickly because I don't see many players coming back."

Defeat at Saints leaves Newcastle languishing in 14th place in the Premier League, four points off the relegation zone.