Steven Davis insists Saints are not looking over their shoulder in the battle for Europe – even though Swansea have now cut the gap to just four points.

Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Sunderland came as a blow to the club’s Europa League hopes, keeping them outside of the guaranteed qualification spots.

The top six would be good enough for them, while seventh could also do it, although that latter scenario would require a nervous wait to see if Arsenal beat Aston Villa in the FA Cup final.

But Saints may even be facing some competition for that position now, with eighth-placed Swansea having moved just four points behind them.

“They’ve crept up well to be fair and have been really strong second half of the season, but we’re not looking behind us – we’re looking in front of us and just trying to finish the season as strong as possible,” said Davis.

Any fears of the Welsh club overtaking Saints will be eased by the Swans’ vastly-inferior goal difference and a fixture list that sees them play Arsenal and Manchester City in their final three games.

As Davis points out, though, of greater concern is catching Tottenham or Liverpool – the two sides immediately above them.

Daily Echo:

Steven Davis arriving at the Stadium of Light

“We’ve just got to keep plugging away and see where it takes us,” he said.

“With four games to go, it was important for us to get a result [at Sunderland] and we’re disappointed not to get anything from the game.

“We know it’s difficult in the Premier League, but we managed to put a few good runs together throughout the course of the season and hopefully we can do that again.”

On the final day of the league campaign, only the top six will be guaranteed European football, with the possibility that Aston Villa might win the FA Cup and take the last Europa spot themselves.

Assuming the top four remains unchanged, that means Saints are in a straight fight with Spurs and Liverpool for the two assured Europa League places.

The other incentive to finish as high as possible is the chance to avoid the dreaded Europa League qualifiers.

Should the FA Cup place go back to the league in the event of an Arsenal win then fifth and sixth places will ensure automatic qualification for the group stages of the Europa League, whereas seventh will have to qualify.

It means starting the season at the end of July, and having to win through two, two-legged ties to get to the group stage.

Should you get to the group stages, even if you get knocked out there, it adds ten fixtures to your season by mid-December.

For a club like Saints without a massive squad or extensive resources, it piles on the pressure and the difficulty factor, as well of course of leaving open the possibility of your hopes fizzling out early on, as they did for Hull, who won their first qualifying tie but lost the second and thus failed to make the group stages.

Saints head to another relegation battler, Leicester, next weekend, as they enter their final three fixtures.

“They’ve had a good run of form recently and it’s going to be a similar sort of team and a similar desire and it’s important for ourselves that we can bounce back from this and put together a few results between now and the end of the season,” said Davis.

With two of their remaining three games away from home, it is concerning that Saints have picked up just one point from the last available 15 on the road.

However, Davis believes that isn’t necessarily a fair reflection of their performance levels.

“To be fair, I think before [Saturday’s] game you could probably say that we maybe deserved to get something from the games, but on [this] performance I don’t think we really did,” he said.

“You look back to the last game at Stoke and it was disappointing not to come away with something, because we felt we’d done enough to get something from the game, but I don’t really think that was the case [against Sunderland].

“When we went down to ten men we did okay and put them under a little bit of pressure, but it’s always hard when you’re up against ten v 11.”