Saints head into a “pressurised” meeting with Fulham on Boxing Day confident of a rare away success, despite a deflating defeat to Sunderland.

The club will spend Christmas Day still teetering on the brink of the relegation zone having dropped points in what was seen as a very winnable home game.

Boss Nigel Adkins admitted that losing to one of their fellow strugglers at St Mary’s is a damaging blow, but he insists they can patch the wound up with a second away victory of the season, at Craven Cottage.

The two sides played out an entertaining 2-2 draw earlier in the season, with the Saints boss taking heart from his side’s performance that day as they prepare to face an out-of-form Fulham side.

“I’ve highlighted you need to win your games at home, especially against the teams around us,” said Adkins. “It hasn’t gone our way. We’ll analyse it, we’ll quickly move on, we’ll draw a line underneath it and get ourselves ready for the next one.

“All the games are going to be pressurised. What we’ve got to do is make sure we regroup and get ourselves ready for Fulham.”

Full story in today's Daily Echo