George Burley believes his players need to show more appetite to bounce back from Saturday's dismal defeat to Stoke.

Saints were certainly lacklustre at the Britannia Stadium but have an instant chance to put that right when they face Cardiff at St Mary's tonight.

Their performance will need to be much improved to get a result.

Burley said: "We were very disappointed on Saturday.

"There are not many times this season we can say it was a bad result and a poor performance, but I felt that was the case. We didn't show enough appetite to win the match.

"I felt we let our fans down and we've got to show them tonight how much we care and how much desire we've got to get promotion.

"Cardiff are a very good team and it won't be easy, but we'll certainly be doing our best to put things right tonight."

Saints are down to eighth, three points off the top six.

Cardiff are one of the sides just above them and Saints need three points to get back on level terms with the Welshmen.

Saints have one of the best home records in the division, but it's away from St Mary's that their problems lie - only Colchester have a worse away points haul this season among other top 10 clubs.