Ronald Koeman admits he is at a loss to explain just why Saints continue to struggle in front of goal away from home.

The Saints boss went all out attack at Everton, naming Graziano Pelle, Shane Long, Sadio Mane and Dusan Tadic in his starting line-up as he looked to take advantage of an understrength Toffees side and enhance his team’s bid for European football.

They certainly dominated the game and created numerous opportunities, including striking the woodwork twice, but it ended in frustration as Saints were held to a 1-1 draw.

The table shows that Saints have been one of the highest scorers at home this season with 31 goals. However, away from home they are amongst the lowest scorers with just 14 goals from 17 matches.

Koeman could not explain it away, but admitted it has become a factor.

“That’s one of the reasons that maybe after today we have scored 14 away goals, and 31 at home,” he said.

“That difference is too big.

“We need to improve and we need to improve in that aspect.

“The team organisation is very good, we don’t concede a lot of goals, but we need to score more goals away from home.

“I don’t know why. Maybe sometimes we are a little bit too much reserved away but not today because Mane, Tadic, Long, Pelle all strikers. We can’t play more offensively, we can’t play with more strikers.

“Then you have to make that difference and that’s the responsibility of the strikers and we need to improve in that aspect.”

The draw at Everton meant that Saints’ winless run at Goodison Park extended still further.

It is now 11 games without a victory there for Saints, over a period spanning more than 18 years.

This game was about a good a chance as you could wish for, which added to Koeman’s frustrations.

“Disappointed about the final result,” he reflected.

“Of course, if you are 1-0 down in the second half and you get one point out of it, that’s positive, but it was not what we like to have.

“It was difficult and it was not sharp enough in the whole total team performance.

“I was disappointed after 45 minutes that we didn’t create more, that we didn’t score the goal, because in my opinion there were a lot of opportunities.

“It was not good enough in the final pass, and not enough shots on target and then it’s difficult to score the goal.

“It’s a very offensive system, but with the four strikers then you need to make a difference.”