ADAM Lallana believes he is nearly back to his best after turning in a brilliant display during Saints’ 2-0 FA Cup win over Shrewsbury.

The midfielder terrorised the Shrews down the left-hand side, particularly in the second half of yesterday’s match.

And Lallana fully deserved his injury-time goal, which rounded off a late show that sent Saints into today’s second round draw.

After missing nearly all of pre-season with a knee injury, the 22-year-old went into the campaign short on fitness.

Lallana was nursed through the opening few games, but aggravated his injury in August’s 4-0 win at Bristol Rovers.

That led to a month or so on the sidelines and Lallana only now believes he is returning to full strength.

“I feel that I’m nearly 100 per cent fit now,” he said after yesterday’s win.

“I was off for five weeks or so and didn’t have a pre-season, so it’s taken a bit longer than I would have expected, but I feel I’m nearly there now, especially after playing Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday, as it just boosts your fitness up a little bit.”

Saints snatched victory with two injury-time goals and Lallana praised the team for not giving up the fight against a dogged Shrews side.

“We persevered for the 90 minutes and we got the goals in the final two or three minutes,” he said.

“It shows that we’re fit, we’re strong and that we can mentally persevere for 90 minutes – or 95 minutes – which you’ve got to do as a team.

“We obviously wanted to miss out going to Shrewsbury on a Tuesday night away, as it just adds to the games.

“But we’re into the draw for the next round and that’s all we wanted.”