The free-scoring visitors at St Mary’s Stadium looked in ominous mood as Sergio Aguero fired them into a 10th-minute lead and the in-form striker should have added his 19th goal of the season with half-an-hour played.
But by that stage, Mauricio Pochettino's injury-ravaged team had driven City back with a tireless and confident display that was rewarded by Pablo Daniel Osvaldo's magnificent equaliser three minutes before the interval.
Lallana was at the heart of much of his team's fine work, while Jay Rodriguez handed Pablo Zabaleta a torrid afternoon and combined wonderfully with Osvaldo throughout, but none of the impressive attacking trio were able to find the decisive contribution to hand City a fifth defeat on their travels this term.
"We're delighted to get the point," Lallana said.
"Obviously we would have liked to get the three and we thought we merited that with our performance, but it's always going to be a tough match against Manchester City. They're probably the favourites to win the title."
Southampton's performance was even more creditable given that it arrived on the back of three consecutive defeats.
"We’ve picked up a couple of indifferent results of late but that's not through us not playing well," Lallana said.
"Sometimes you just don't get the rub of the green and luck will even itself out over the course of the season.
"We're delighted to get another point on the board. We can move on now – we've got another tough game at Newcastle next week."
