4-0 defeat at Boro 'disgraceful' - Armstrong

Southampton striker Adam Armstrong says Sunday's 4-0 away defeat by Middlesbrough was "disgraceful".

Saints were level at half-time before conceding four goals in 22 minutes, and slipped back down to 15th in the table.

"No matter where you are, no matter if you play home or away, it's not good enough," Armstrong told BBC Radio Solent.

"People travel to watch a good game of football and we haven't given them that. We have to work hard this week to go again and put on another performance.

"We could have had a few goals. We had some good spells and good moments, but I've always said if you don't take your chances there's enough quality in this league to punish you, and the start of the second half wasn't good enough.

"Some of the goals were sloppy on our behalf. Letting runners go, not marking in the box and you get punished - simple as that."

Armstrong, 28, has made almost 150 appearances for the south coast club, and knows it is up to the senior players to try and avoid collapses in games like that.

"In any league, you can't react like that going a goal down," he said.

"We have to react way better than that. The boys know that, and we have to go again, we have to.

"The first half we could have been two or three up, but we're just not punishing teams at the moment when in the last couple of months we have been punishing teams.

"We just need that luck to turn again, but we can't afford to say 'we'll be ahead by two or three goals before half-time' because it doesn't work like that."

Saints won six of their first seven games under Tonda Eckert, but defeat on Teesside means they are now winless in six.

Armstrong insists the players are not losing their confidence.

"We have to take every game as it comes, as cliched as it is, and it's a rubbish saying, but we have to.

"The games are coming very fast this month, we knew that, but it's how you react to moments like that."

Saints have a break from league action for Saturday's FA Cup third-round trip to League One strugglers Doncaster Rovers.

They then have four games - against Hull City, Sheffield United, rivals Portsmouth and Stoke City - inside 15 days.