Southampton manager Will Still felt his side’s 1-1 draw with Town at Portman Road was the type of match in which the Saints would have crumbled last season.

Taylor Harwood-Bellis’s own goal gave the Blues the lead on four, but 18-year-old Jay Robinson levelled on 29 with his first senior goal for the Hampshire club.

“If you can't win that sort of game, it’s important not to lose it, and we’ve done that,” Still, who remains unbeaten since taking over at St Mary’s in the summer.

“The start to the game was frustrating because we knew the intensity around the place, and we shot ourselves in the foot by gifting them that first goal.

“After that, the first-half performance was really, really good. We reacted well to what could have been a really tricky situation and scored a good goal.

“On the whole, the first half was the sort of performance that we want to see, the way that this team wants to go and the way we want to play.

“The second half was more scrappy and not the best game, but you expect that coming to grounds like this, it's difficult and they build pressure up.

“We dug in when we had to, so that's a positive thing. I think the draw was probably a fair result and a logical one. We take a point, we’re still unbeaten.

“We keep moving and look forward to it. The players themselves have said that if that had happened four months ago, we probably would have crumbled.

“We haven't done. Obviously, we’ve gone behind in the two games that we’ve played, which is frustrating. We can do better on the goals we’ve conceded.

“But at least we’ve put one foot in the right direction of how we react to that and how we look forward and move on from difficult situations.

“We've shown a bit of grit, we've shown a bit of determination and character and we've got back into the game. Now we need to be hypercritical.

“We can be more clinical in both boxes and more demanding of ourselves, but it’s two games in and we’ve won in the cup, we've got the next round.

“A lot of clubs have been knocked out. We’re still unbeaten and we need to build on the first half and the positives that we can take from the game.”

Photo: TWTD

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