Southampton captain James Ward-Prowse admitted it was a 'massive blow' after twice letting slip a two-goal lead against Arsenal.
The Saints were denied precious three points in their fight for survival by Bukayo Saka's last-minute equaliser in a thrilling 3-3 draw.
Saints had looked on course for a shock win to move off the bottom of the table after Carlos Alcaraz opened the scoring inside a minute and then teed up former Arsenal forward Theo Walcott to double the lead.
Gabriel Martinelli pulled a goal back, but the hosts looked down and out when substitute Duje Caleta-Car headed home in the second half.
However, captain Martin Odegaard bent home a fine strike with two minutes to go before Saka turned in the late leveller.
Ward-Prowse told Sky Sports: 'A great game to play and incredible atmosphere and you can definitely feel the positive feeling here. We took our chances really well and we knew they'd come on in the second-half. It's a good point to come here, but we are disappointed not to take all three.
'It's a massive blow, but we have to take a lot of positives from it and I was surprised to see eight minutes at the end, a strange amount to be added on. But we have to defend better.
'We lost our identity a bit and Ruben has definitely got that back on track with the high aggressive press. I think we tired towards the end and we came up against a world-class side.
'We need to follow it up with good performance and good results. We always get good points against the so called good teams but need to follow it up in following games.
'There here is still a lot of football. We've got to keep believing.'