"I thought it was a cracking game of football and we had the better of the first half and Southampton the better of the second," he said.
"It was just a pity that we couldn't have kept it to 2-0 but they are a good side and it was no surprise they made it hard for us in the second half.
"We started the game really well and the boys have been tremendous in training so I knew they would be on song. Maybe we took too much out of ourselves in the first half because we are a young team.
"We played some fantastic football and scored two great goals. We couldn't get the third goal and in the second half we were on the back foot although I thought we finished the game well.
"Fortunately the away goal doesn't count in this competition so we will go to Southampton next Friday with confidence and we will give it a good go because we've still got our noses ahead."