Mauricio Pellegrino has admitted mulling over a change in formation – but faces a tricky dilemma on whether to act on it for tomorrow’s game against Newcastle.

The Saints manager has started with a 4-2-3-1 formation so far this season but has come under increasing pressure to do something different to try and get this side scoring again.

There has been speculation that Pellegrino could switch to playing with three centre halves.

Though the Saints boss has been thinking about it, he is cautious about whether to make a big change having been robbed of time to work on it with 12 first team players having been away on international duty over the past fortnight.

He said: “I was thinking about it (changing formation), but also at the same time we didn’t have too much time to work together, and this is the question.

“Sometimes if we drew the other day against Stoke we aren’t talking about changing a lot of things.

“Sometimes the result you think you have to change when you don’t get a result, but we have to analyse well what we are doing well, what we are doing wrong.

“I think we have to keep going with this mentality.

“Obviously we have to improve, not just in attack but for me in defence in second ball, in set plays in a lot of areas we can be better.”

Newcastle have shown a lot of resilience this season under Pellegrino’s former mentor Rafa Benitez, and that adds to the uncertainty.

“I think they are getting better like every single team,” reflected Pellegrino.

“After seven games most of the team are playing because they are adapting, the manager adapting the tactical ideas to the players.

“The Premier League is really tough. Last game against Liverpool they were really good in defence but I think they will be a difficult team to penetrate but we have the quality to try to win the game.”