SOUTHAMPTON, England -- Southampton boss Ronald Koeman did not hide his disappointment at his team's inability to deal with Manchester City's clear superiority as they were beaten 3-0 at home.
Second-half goals from Yaya Toure, Frank Lampard and Gael Clichy secured the victory for City, who survived a late sending off for Eliaquim Mangala.
"If you make mistakes you will be punished for that and even when it was 11 against 10 we made mistakes and they scored two more goals," Koeman said. "That's not good. We knew we had to be good to have a good result today, but our ball possession in the beginning of the game was not good."
He added: "In the second half I thought little by little we would create little chances to win the game, but it was not good enough.
"It is far harder to create chances against a team like Manchester City: that was not good enough from us, and we got punished for that."
His team surrendered their second place in the Premier League as they enter a difficult run of fixtures that will sorely test their credentials. Arsenal on Wednesday are Saints' next opponents.
"Maybe the pressure is a little bit higher than in the start of the season," Koeman said. "But we put pressure on ourselves to show our qualities in our way of playing and we realise that it's more difficult against these kind of teams like City.
"We know exactly that we are a growing team and it's difficult to beat these kind of teams."