Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola does not believe Sunday’s surprise Premier League loss to Southampton highlights the need for the club to sign new players.

Guardiola’s City suffered their third consecutive away defeat in the Premier League after going down 1-0 to Southampton at St Mary’s on Sunday.

After routing newly crowned champions Liverpool 4-0 last time out, City – who rested Kevin De Bruyne and others – succumbed to Che Adams’ first Premier League goal as they fell 23 points adrift in second position.

Napoli star Kalidou Koulibaly and Bayern Munich’s David Alaba have been among the players linked with moves to City at the end of the season.

But when asked if City’s defeat was a question of needing new players, Guardiola told reporters: ‘No, I don’t think so.

‘I think we play good, honestly. We play with the character and desire to drive until the end. We played against Southampton who had 10 players in the penalty area. We did it really well.

‘We will review the game, and with the chances that we had, we can do more. It’s difficult to create more chances than we created and the way we did it.

‘I’m so proud, so I liked the way we played but it’s not enough. There’s no complaint about the players. We played really well, I like it but it’s not enough to win the games.’

Guardiola, meanwhile, doesn’t feel City goalkeeper Ederson is to blame for the loss to Southampton.

Adams scored the only goal of the game in the 16th minute, catching the Brazilian keeper off his line after Oleksandr Zinchenko had been dispossessed of the ball.

‘We use our keeper to build up our play. We use our keeper to play better,’ Guardiola said. ‘It gives us a lot. The mistake is part of the game but we didn’t lose for that reason.

‘It happens many times this season this situation. The amount of chances we have but it’s football. The amount of chances we have but not able to score goals.’