Mark Hughes has given his thoughts ahead of the Manchester City game on Sunday.

Hughes spoke about the defensive work that has taken place, how to prepare for a City side in excellent form, Saints' current league position, the latest team news and restoring confidence in the strikers.

1. Two clean sheets in a row:

“That was the basis of our work in the last few weeks.

“It has allowed us to have a platform and has added to the confidence within the group.

“Clearly, we are playing City at the weekend and need to be at our best with our defensive work."

2. Preparing for Man City:

“It’s important that you look at games that they’ve played in recent times.

“There are always elements of any team that you can look to exploit, no matter how good they are.

“They get into winning positions very quickly which we can’t let happen.

“They are going to have a lot of possession and we need to be patient and know when to press and when we can’t press.”

3. Saints' league position:

“At some period, you will go on a run and every club outside of the top six will go through that run where you won’t win for five or six games.

“Hopefully, we have had ours now.

“You shouldn’t get too anxious or worried about a period of five or six games, if it was 20 then you’d be worried.”

4. Team news:

“Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is over his illness and has trained this week.

“Everybody is fit and well.”

5. Restoring confidence in the strikers:

“We have been a little bit harder on them in training with the chances that they have.

“It’s to give them an understanding that if they are putting chances away in training, then it gives them the platform to do that in a match situation.

“If they get a chance, we’ve got to take it.”