ORIOL Romeu admits Saints would “all love to be more creative” and it would make an “amazing difference” if they were – but it’s not that simple.

The 26-year-old believes Mauricio Pellegrino's side fear being punished on the counterattack if they commit too much going forward.

Romeu speculates that this is why Saints have struggled to win convincingly and not capitalised after taking the lead this term.

“We’d love to all be more creative and make a difference in the last third, but that’s difficult,” said the Spanish midfielder.

“That’s the most difficult part in football and that will make an amazing difference.

“But we need to be quicker with the ball, make them (opponents) run and pull them out of place. That will give us a bigger chance to get to the box and get more chances.”

The former Chelsea man believes that Saints are still to find that balance between being “creative and offensive and not being punished by the counterattack”.

“Whenever we play against these teams we know how good they are defensively,” he said ahead of this Saturday’s game against high-flying Burnley at St Mary's.

“Everyone is proving very hard to be beaten or to take them out of place. We need to do better with the ball.

“They (opponents) are clever, they are ready to run and recover and go for the counterattack and that’s hard because if you try and attack too much you can get killed by a counterattack.

“We need to find that balance between being creative and offensive and not being punished by a counterattack.”

Romeu has often spoken to manager Mauricio Pellegrino who is “always telling me” that it is important Saints mark attackers even when the team are going forward.

“He’s always telling me when we’re attacking we need to be closer to their strikers because if we lose the ball and they’re free it’s easier for them to be free and run and get that counterattack,” he said.

“While we’re attacking we have to defend and allow our attacking players to create problems but we defensively have to be ready for the counter.”

But Romeu agrees that Saints need to gamble more when going forward to help them score more often.

“Yes, to break the lines without a doubt you have to play forward and that’s the one of the things we need to get,” he said.

“Against Brighton we couldn’t break the lines, but we need to make sure our defensive parts are strong and from there we need to build the momentum and get those players up front.

“We need to feed them more balls and give them better chances.”

Saints also need to learn that scoring one goal is often not enough to win games, as they discovered to their cost in the 1-1 draw at Brighton last weekend.

“We thought one goal was enough but that’s not what you have to do,” he said. “We score one but we have to go for the second and keep going.

“Even if we lose we have to keep going for the same and the style of play must always be the same.”