Southampton manager Mauricio Pellegrino wants to dip into the transfer market after admitting Saints have lost out on a couple of deals

Mauricio Pellegrino is aiming for at least one new signing to freshen up his Saints squad.

With the new Premier League season little over a week away, Saints have so far only recruited £5m Polish centre half Jan Bednarek this summer.

Rather than lavishing cash on new players, the club’s recent policy has instead been to try and maintain the squad they have, tying star players down to expensive long-term contracts.

However, Pellegrino is still keen on bringing in a fresh face or two, and admitted that Saints thought they had a couple of deals done recently only for the players to end up moving elsewhere.

He said: “We are studying the market.

“We have got some options and always we can improve the squad.

“We will keep going and after we will wait to see what happens.”

Pellegrino, whose situation is not helped by the ongoing uncertainty over the future of Virgil van Dijk, continued: “We got a couple of players close to sign the contract but we lost them.

“The market is difficult, a lot of important teams are challenging for the best players.

“We are confident that someone can come.”

Pellegrino has been back at Staplewood working with his squad again and aiming to learn the lessons of Wednesday night’s chastening 4-0 defeat to Augsburg at St Mary’s.

Though the team Pellegrino fielded for his first home game in charge of Saints was not the strongest or the fittest he had available, he certainly expected better than such a heavy loss.

Pellegrino admitted after the game that he is getting nearer to knowing his likely starting line-up for the Premier League opener against Swansea a week tomorrow.

With that in mind he is expected to field the bulk of that team in tomorrow’s final pre-season friendly at home to La Liga side Sevilla.

After the midweek loss Saints could certainly do with a morale boosting victory, and performance, to gain some momentum to take into the new campaign.

“For me the game (against Augsburg) is a night where everything was wrong from the beginning to the end,” admitted Pellegrino.

“We couldn’t manage the game, and the only positive thing is that it was a friendly and we can make a lot of conclusion, in terms of model of play or how we can continue playing about some players at individual level.

“After we have to see the team in the next few games because the other day (St Etienne) the game was good, this was really bad and this is football.”