SAINTS manager Ruben Selles offered a hint at his team selection for Friday’s clash with Arsenal, admitting: “We are going to try and press them and win the balls high as possible.”

The Spaniard started the eventual 2-0 home defeat versus Crystal Palace last weekend without a recognised striker, with £18million Paul Onuachu on the bench.

It was the second successive match Saints had set up without a traditional number nine following the loss to Manchester City – in which substitute forward Sekou Mara scored their only goal.

Selles was asked if he is going to change tact and put Onuachu in for his first start since losing to Leeds United in February, in Selles’s second game as boss.

However, Selles, facing media ahead of the trip to Emirates Stadium, was defiant in his answer and insisted: "I don't make my line-up or tactics to do with what anyone else thinks.

"We need to be competitive in the game until we can score the goal. It is not about one number nine, this is a different challenge for all of us so the solution is not to put one, two or three strikers on, it's about putting people in situations.

"We are going to try and press them and win the balls high as possible to win the game," he added. “If we play our game we have options to win the game.

“We know what we can do if we can keep the performance as we did in the first half against Manchester City.

"It has been desperate from the very first second but the only difference now is we are running out of games. We haven't transformed performance to points.

"In every game that the result is not for us, it is hard. Everybody is working hard and the most important thing is you wake up the next day to fix the mistakes."