NIGEL Adkins has told his players they need to “embrace the challenge”

that life at St Mary’s brings them.

Adkins is trying to instil a mentality in the squad whereby the players will relish the huge pressure placed upon them for success at Saints rather than be weighed down by it.

The record this season, particularly at home, suggests it has been difficult for the team to live up to their pre-season billing as red hot favourites for the title, expectations shared by those running the club and the fans.

Adkins is not trying to deny that pressure is there but is approaching it from a different angle.

He said: “I said to them before the game embrace the challenge of being in front a big crowd at St Mary’s.

“We’ve got to excite them but we’ve got to pass the football about.

“We are presented with a big challenge but it’s one we should all love and enjoy.

“We want to be the best we can be, you want to ply your trade as high as possible, you want to be playing or managing big football clubs with the expectations that go with it. And if you don’t embrace that challenge then maybe you’ve got to consider whether you can be the best you can be and push on to the next level.”

He added: “The objective is quite simple – we want to be the best team in the division, we want to get promoted and we want to be champions.

“We’re not going to hide away from that.

“Those are the expectations and the demands that are rightly on a football club like Southampton.

“They shouldn’t be in the bottom realms of League One, we should be pushing to try and get ourselves from the Championship into the Premier League, that’s the long term objective.

“How long is long?

“That’s an interesting thing and we’re trying to do it as quickly as possible, but it’s one stage at a time.

“We need a team all working in the same direction and you could see that because maybe on the back of losing four games after an hour when things aren’t going your way you could go one way, but we kept going and great credit to the players.

“Also great credit to the supporters because they kept behind the players. We’re all in it together, which is good.”