Under-fire Saints boss Mauricio Pellegrino insists he will stick to his guns and continue to back his own judgement.

Pellegrino’s tactics and team selection have under considerable scrutiny in recent weeks as Saints continue to battle for Premier League survival.

There have been calls for him to be less cautious and to move to a more attacking formation and style of play.

However, Pellegrino is adamant he knows his mind, as well as pointing out that he has been prepared to change things, and will keep doing what he believes is best for the team.

He said: “In football it is really difficult to agree with everybody.

“I don’t make decisions for the comments, to be honest.

“I make decisions thinking about what I believe, what I see every single game and I have the information on my players every single day and I see them.

“The staff’s job sometimes is about intuition and sometimes it depends on them because I don’t see any single club in the world that the best player is on the bench.

“The player on the pitch has to defend every single weekend how they are. If they play well they will continue, if they don’t play well they maybe will have another opportunity.

“In this season we change the goalkeeper, we change the centre back, we change the striker, we change the second striker, we change the wingers, we change different systems.

“The only players we didn’t change are Cedric, Oriol and Ryan, but most of them have had the opportunity.

“The stats are we are the third team in the Premier League that arrive more in the final third, and do you think we are a team that don’t attack, or I told my players don’t go forward?

“This is data. It is not my comments, it is reality.

“I accept the comments because we are in one job that is amazing, but when you don’t win nobody is happy.

“The first one who is not happy is the manager.”

For Pellegrino, tomorrow’s trip to Newcastle is a chance to pit himself against his friend and mentor Rafa Benitez, who brought him to England as a player at Liverpool and later had him on his coaching staff both at Anfield and Inter Milan.

“Obviously I have had a lot of relations with Rafa and always I will be grateful with him because I have been with him as a player and assistant and also with his staff,” said Pellegrino of the Newcastle manager.

“I met a lot of amazing people that helped me learn a lot in life.”