Ipswich Town may have come back from two goals down twice to earn a point at Southampton but captain Matt Holland reflected on what might have been.

The Blues had to settle for a 3-3 draw against the Saints at St Mary's on Wednesday night as Marcus Stewart grabbed two goals and Mark Venus scored with a spectacular 30-yard strike.

But midfielder Holland felt George Burley's troops should have won the game.

He said: "I'm a bit disappointed we didn't win. You score three goals away from home and you expect to win.

"It was bad defending maybe for a couple of the goals. The first goal was a foul I felt, but on the whole that's as good as we've played for a little while.

"In the second half in particular we created a lot of chances and we were a little bit unlucky in the end not to win the game. I think we did enough to have done that.

"Southampton worked very hard. They were trying to impress their new manager Gordon Strachan. Their work rate was good, but so was ours.

"At 2-0 down we just had to keep doing what we were doing. We weren't playing badly and we found ourselves 2-0 down and then 3-1 down and that was unbelievable really.

"We turned it around. We got back into the game at three-all and we could have won it."

Holland also praised goalkeeper Matteo Sereni, who pulled off some excellent saves: "He's been excellent for us. Since he's signed he's kept us in a lot of games. He's an important player for us."

And about two-goal hero Marcus Stewart, Holland added: "It probably wasn't his best game of the season. His touch wasn't as good as he would have liked, especially in the first half, but he got more into the game in the second half and scored two good goals and that's Marcus all over."

"Give him a chance and he puts it in the net. He got a lot of goals like that last season and hopefully he will do the same again this year." He is a goalscorer, he gets himself into good positions and he's dangerous player."

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