Mauricio Pellegrino played down suggestions that Saints are under pressure to beat Burnley next weekend after being pegged back to draw 1-1 at Brighton.

Saints have to play all of the Premier League’s top six before the end of the year following the match against the Clarets at St Mary’s, and the subsequent international break.

It could mean points are hard to come by, and with Saints having enjoyed a comparatively kind early fixture list another draw seems to have piled on the pressure.

However, Pellegrino was remaining calm.

He said: “We must push to try to win the game. This is our feeling every single weekend, not just the next one.

“If we win the next one the other is the same for us.

“We are professionals, we are working every single day to try to get points.

“You know in the Premier League from the bottom of the table to the fifth or the sixth the difference is not too high and you have to fight for every single point.”

Saints will reflect that they could have had all three points at Brighton.

They took the lead after just eight minutes through Steven Davis, and dominated the first half.

However, they allowed Brighton to get level early in the second period through Glenn Murray and sat much deeper, handing control to their hosts.

“Thinking about how was the game with this early goal and the good start for us we are a little bit disappointed because we made the most difficult thing, to be in front in the score,” reflected Pellegrino.

“After that when you allow the opponent to come back and be in the game again in the Premier League every single team has quality to cause problems.

“Now to play against Brighton it is not a good moment to play away because they are mentally very high and now the motivation to play for every single point is really high on this pitch, and most of the teams suffer on this pitch.

“My feeling right now is we compete well but when we control this type of situation you have to play with more determination to score the second one and maybe kill the game.”

He added: “In the first half we are talking about to go forward with more determination.

“Maybe at the end of the first half we allowed them to come, to react.

“In the second we expect this reaction and obviously they were pushing and after they equalise more or less we control the game, the ball, but we never find this situation to try to score the second one.”