Ronald Koeman fears that some of his Saints stars may have become distracted by transfer speculation.

The Saints boss saw his side put in what he believes to the worst performance of their season last weekend as they were beaten 2-1 by Sunderland in a very out of character display at the Stadium of Light.

They travel to face another relegation threatened team tomorrow in the shape of Leicester needing to reverse a poor recent run of form on the road that has seen them take just one point from five away games.

Koeman admits it is hard to be sure why his team didn’t perform in Sunderland but with speculation surrounding a host of stars – such as Nathaniel Clyne and Morgan Schneiderlin – he worries that the squad’s focus may have just wavered.

He said: “You never know and for sure all the agents are working but that’s in every club, not only Southampton.

“All the clubs are working and doing and transfers and looking and making decisions about next season.

“Maybe it’s ten per cent less attention and focus to the game on Saturday than it should be.”

Koeman added: “It’s difficult because a little bit the shape at the moment maybe a little bit doubting in the beginning of the game and sometimes it’s difficult.

“It’s always difficult to take something out because that’s the reason.

“It can be the interest in the future of players, it can be a lot of reasons.

“It’s still three to play and we play for something nice to reach in this season but it was not in my opinion the spirit, it wasn’t the level what we showed in our ball possession which was poor.

“It makes the opponent more strong and if they press every time you lose the ball we have to do better.”

Koeman did qualify his remarks by pointing out that the transfer distractions are not only down to the players themselves.

“That is difficult because it is not always the player but it can be the people around the player and that’s normal but it is part of football,” he reflected.

“Always at the end of the season you have rumours and you have to make decisions about contracts of players and OK, but we need a focus to play football.

“That’s sometimes difficult but that happens everywhere, not only in Southampton.”

The away run is of particular concern as Saints have a little wobble just as they hit the closing stages of the season hot on the heels of sixth placed Tottenham.

“Difficult, difficult,” he admitted. “Maybe a little bit of confidence in away games because of difficulties in creating chances and maybe not so solid as before.

“The total performance of the team was not on a normal level and I think there’s always different ways to lose but the Everton game for example I think we play on a very good level.

“We had chances to score but defensively strong and they scored from a corner kick in a second situation but last week was totally different, there was no level, no football, strange, 10 against 11 we started to play football. Difficult.”

He continued: “Weneed the points and we need to win to reach the position that we like to finish.

“Maybe it’s more pressure to the players and it’s a little more unlucky at this moment that we don’t have everybody available.

“But we have to do it with the players we have.”