Saints boss Gordon Strachan is confident his team will have their shape right against Leicester tonight - they just need to keep the ball.

After three successive defeats against teams playing a lone striker, pressing high up the field and having men running from deep, Strachan has had the players working on how to best to retain their shape as a team on the training field.

He thinks progress has been made but the key is still to retain possession at the same time.

He said: "I think Leicester in the first game of the season summed up our season - we were poor in the first half, excellent in the second half and we got a draw.

"I think that's been our football - we've just been quite ordinary this season.

"We've tried to get better shape for when teams like Newcastle or Arsenal play against us so we can play more and have more variation.

"We get in the right shapes but then it's entirely up to them how they pass the ball. We got some lovely shapes in training but then we can't pass the ball ten yards so that's killed.

"You can move a midfield player there, a centre-half there, a striker there and then give away possession, so all that hard work has been killed by the fact that somebody can't pass the ball from A to B.

"And that is still the most important thing in football."

Strachan admitted there is extra pressure going into tonight's match at St Mary's as Saints try to avert a slide down the table.

"Having lost three games, it adds a bit of pressure, but every manager and every team somewhere along the line has added pressure on them," he said.

"It could be a lot worse. We have collected a few points over the season and it's about right the point total we've got - we don't deserve any more or any less.

"It is a wee bit different now because we'd like to win a game of football but you've got to watch out that you don't get too disappointed. Four weeks ago, the media were talking about the Champions' League, so that's what can happen in football.

"I've got to try and stay on a level course and hopefully I've done that, but the disappointment of getting beat is huge and we've tried to get over it by talking about it and working on it."

He added: "I've tried to fix it and that's all I can do. If I sat there twiddling my thumbs, then I'd be being lazy.

"I've tried to identify where we're going wrong and then make it easier for the players by passing that information on to them when we play teams like Newcastle and Arsenal."

There is a determined attitude amongst the players to put things right for the fans and Strachan added: "There is a big difference in the camp from a few weeks ago, because the boys are disappointed.

"We could all kid each on, come in and laugh and joke and run about naked for a bit of team spirit, but it's what you do on the pitch.

"Most of the people that are silent in the dressing-room before the game are the ones that do all the shouting out there.

"The ones that talk before the game sometimes clam up during the game."