Still laments lack of efficiency in both boxes

Saints came closest to scoring in the first half when Jay Robinson struck the same post twice in quick succession, before Taylor Harwood-Bellis forced a stunning save from goalkeeper Viktor Johansson early in the second period.

But Saints were stung by two counter-attack goals either side of Divin Mubama’s second yellow card that left Stoke playing the last half an hour with 10 men.

Harwood-Bellis did pull one back after Flynn Downes and Ross Stewart had missed golden chances, but, despite sustained pressure, Stoke could not repeat the heroics of their dramatic fightback from the opening day victory over Wrexham.

“It was a tough Championship game, Stoke have been incredibly efficient and we weren’t,” Still said.

“The goals that we’ve conceded are incredibly avoidable. We’ve spoken a lot about not playing our first pass vertical to the inside – we must play outside to then be able to play back in, and the distance of pass has to be adapted to what we’re trying to do, but we’ve played it straight into their press, we’ve lost it and we’ve been hit on two transitions.

“The first-half performance was frustrating. We started slowly, we were playing too small and too short, but we’ve hit the post twice in the first half, we’ve created enough situations to get in front and we haven’t done it.

“You go 1-0 down, the red card happens and then you panic a bit because you feel obliged to go and start doing things and forcing things, which is not what we had to do, and then we’ve lost focus – they’ve played one incredibly long ball and we’ve lost it on the second transition.

“We’ve created some really, really big chances. Their keeper has made a worldie of a save on Taylor’s header, but we need to be more manly about it with cutting edge about what we do, and be hyper-efficient in both boxes, and we haven’t been that today.

“Credit to them, they’ve been hyper-efficient, they’re not top of the league for nothing and we’ve, frustratingly enough, given it to them.”