Mark Hughes is ready to be ruthless as he attempts to save Saints.

The new boss has been thrust into a difficult situation and the size of the task in front of him was laid bare as Saints capitulated in a 3-0 defeat to West Ham in his first top flight match in charge of the club.

Hughes now takes his team to the Emirates to face Arsenal tomorrow, well aware time is running out for Saints to secure the points they need for safety.

While Hughes believes it is a confidence issue, he is only going to pick players who are ready for the battle, even if that means selecting those who have less technical ability.

He said: “I think confidence is a huge thing in football and that can seep away, players can lose form as well along with confidence and we haven’t had too many positive results in a number of weeks. That can erode the level of confidence you can sometimes have to go into games and be as effective as you want to be.

“We haven’t got time to wait for form to change and players to comes to terms with it. I’ve got to look at the group and see who’s ready to go and who is in the best frame of mind to get the job done.

“If that means on occasions that you possibly lessen the talent in the group to make you more solid then sometimes those are decisions that need to be made but it’s about getting results at this stage.”

He added: “We are looking at all options we have before us.

“Some players will grab the shirt, others will have the shirt but let it go too readily and we have to pick players who are ready for the games ahead of us.”

Part of the difficulty for Hughes is that much like his predecessor Mauricio Pellegrino he is seeing positive signs in training but then not on the pitch.

“We had a really strong week (before West Ham) in terms of preparation and application and maybe that was the surprise, because we weren’t able to get anywhere near that intensity in the game,” admitted Hughes.

“That leads me to believe it is more a confidence thing than an inability to affect the opposition.

“That is clearly shaped by conceding goals too early in games, certainly away from home it’s even more difficult because you don’t have the benefit of your own crowd to turn that around.

“It’s about making sure that we have always got a foothold in the game and we don’t give ourselves a mountain to climb and in recent times that’s what’s been happening.

“We have got to try and avert those situations and if we do that we build confidence and we get better a result. That’s been the emphasis this week. We need to be more understanding of what is required in key moments of the game and manage our way through that.

“Opportunities will come because we have got a talented group and they have got the talent to create opportunities so you have to be patient sometimes.

“If momentum goes away from you then you have got to be resolute, nice and compact, solid and wait for it to change direction.

“We have got to make sure we are always in the game ahead of us.”