"We're Getting There" - PardewPosted on: Sat 19 Dec 2009Alan Pardew said that there were plenty of positives to take away from Elland Road despite going down to a defeat at Leeds.
The Saints manager felt his team showed that they could compete with the table toppers and was pleased with the progress they have made so far.
"We're not quite at Leeds' level, it's taken them three or four years to get there, but we are getting there," he commented afterwards.
"We'll take a lot of positives out of the game but we gave a lot of strong performances today, the two centre halves were very good today, but there's room for improvement and that's what we've got to do.
"I'm disappointed that we lost today because we did a lot of good things, but we didn't play enough, we didn't put enough quality balls to our strikers or our wide players, so I think we missed Morgan Schneiderlin today if I'm honest.
"We battled, we were committed and on 65 minutes when they take off their best player, you start to think it's almost 'job done' so the goal came at a bad time for us because we had them in a good position.
"We played an offensive team here, we didn't sit back, we gave them some problems but we didn't switch the ball well enough to get Adam Lallana on the ball because he was a problem for them today."
Clear opportunities were restricted for both sides, so Pardew was frustrated not to get a key decision go his team's way late in the game.
"We had three or four chances and at the end in all honesty when we're fighting to get something from the game, we had a cast iron penalty, but he (the referee) wasn't brave enough to give it.
"We won a header in the box," he explained. "Antonio got a touch then the guy has just took him out, and unfortunately for us the ball fell to one of our players so we played on, but I think the referee didn't fancy giving the decision because there was a lot of pressure on it."
The manager named Kelvin Davis amongst the substitutes today, but is keen not to rush the shot stopper back into action ahead of the busy Christmas period.
"He was on the bench today but he's still not OK with his kicking yet, so there's a little way to go yet.
"I want us to reach the heights that we can. Today against a very good side they made it difficult for us, but I still felt we could have played better and it will be another difficult game for us on Boxing Day," he concluded.
This post has been edited by FauxHawk: Dec 21 2009, 06:50 PM