DUSAN Tadic admits he’s had sleepless nights over Saints’ recent form and has urged Mark Hughes’ boys to grow up fast.

The Serbia international has never been in a relegation scrap in his career and, having been part of some of the most successful Saints teams in Premier League history, has labelled this a ‘strange and sad situation’.

With seven Premier League games left to scrape clear of the relegation zone, the 29-year-old is desperate for Saints to finally ‘recognise’ how dire their situation is.

“This is a strange and sad situation for me,” he said. “But you need to fight, you have to fight for yourself, you have to fight for the team and try to give your best. Everyone must be focused.”

“Last night I slept but for two nights I didn’t sleep,” he added, when asked if he’d slept after the 3-0 drubbing at the hands of West Ham last time out.

“I have had a lot of fights during my career and my way to get where I am now was not easy.

“For me, every fight is similar, but football is a team sport and we need everyone to be together.

“A better team will win, not the better individual.”

Tadic has been at St Mary’s for nearly four years, having moved from Dutch side FC Twente for £10.9m in the summer of 2014, and has never finished outside the top eight of the Premier League during his stay.

That’s not going to happen this time around, though, with Tadic believing that Saints have lost a lot of the quality and experience they had in that bygone era.

“We had more experience in the team. We had more quality, but the biggest thing was more experience,” he said.

“This was the biggest thing, but once the season is finished we can analyse everything.”

Saints have won just once in 18 league outings and Tadic is desperate for the team to grow up ahead of travelling to Arsenal on Sunday.

With seven games remaining, Mark Hughes' side are third-bottom, two points off safety but have shown little sign they are capable of battling clear after back-to-back 3-0 defeats in the top-flight.

“We have to realise we are not children and that we are adults,” he said.

“We need to be smart and recognise situations when we need to do something.

“What happened cannot happen anymore.

“You feel disappointment and sadness because we should not be in this kind of situation.

“You need to focus in these seven games to give your best and to try to help your team to stay in the league.

“I’m one of the most experienced players here, I like this club, I like the supporters and everything.

“We need to give them something back.”

The playmaker, who has three goals and three assists in the league this term, is pleased with Hughes' impact but is 'mad' they've not been able to translate good training sessions onto the pitch.

“Yes, he [Hughes] tried to build our confidence and give us good training sessions," he said.

“Players started to put more energy on to the training pitch and the environment is much better.

“Because of that I was so mad that we gave away an easy game.

“This is only our fault and this cannot happen again.

“We cannot give away easy games because after 15 minutes the game is one and you’re losing 2-0.

“This is not acceptable and that is from me and all my team-mates.

“We were just building momentum with new coach and a lot of good things on the training pitch and now we just need to put it on the football pitch when the game starts, this is very important.”