It was an off day for Saints but they still managed to battle through for a point although you felt it should really have been three.
Saints were awful in the first half with the only highlight being that they scored a decent goal, the problem was that they kept getting caught with lapses of concentration and their passing was woeful and just about every piece of Newcastle play was the result of Saints players not doing their job.
The two main culprits were Yoshida and to a lesser extent Fonte, neither of whom looked comfortable and kept failing to clear the ball when needed.
The Newcastle first goal came after Yoshida failed to clear a ball and was caught in possession and we paid dearly, on the second goal again Yoshida should have scored with a free header from close range, if he had done then that would have made it 2-1 and put us in the driving seat, but what happened was that from the resulting corner the home side broke and scored and we were chasing the game.
The issues are that too many players on the day did not do their jobs to the standards required and that meant a very poor Newcastle side were not despatched as they should have been.
The plus points were that we kept battling and earned a draw, our first goal was a great cross from Soares who was struggling himself defensively and could have been asily sent off for a second yellow card hence why he was substituted at half time.
The second goal was a great cross from Dusan Tadic for Shane Long who leapt high to head home, from then on you sensed that Saints could win it and Sadio Mane almost did with two good chances in injury time.
But the fact remains that we need to plug that gap in the centre of defence we suffered too many lapses of concentration and if a side like Newcastle can exploit them so will better sides.