Mauricio Pochettino admitted he is concerned about Saints’ faltering Premier League form as they head into a vital Christmas period.

Defeat to Tottenham at St Mary’s yesterday has left Saints with a record of just two points from a possible 18 ahead of back-to-back away games at Cardiff and Everton before a visit from Chelsea.

Saints’ early season defensive solidity has also disappeared as their squad has been stretched by injuries with 13 goals leaked in the last six league games.

Pochettino is not hiding away from the poor form and has confessed he is worried by it.

“We are going through a very tough time at the moment,” he said.

“We are lacking a lot of our players, we are lacking a full squad, players are going through different illnesses and injuries and we are conceding a lot of goals.

“I am concerned about the situation because our main focus now is to regain that defensive solidity to get back to how solid we are defensively.”

Pochettino has pinpointed the moment things turned, as he reflected: “I think it coincided more than anything with the previous break before the Arsenal game.

“We went into the Arsenal game and lost, and then the game against Chelsea and that was a tough moment when we had mounting injuries and mounting problems and lost two games in a row.

“From then the team dropped its performance levels.

“It’s clear you need a full squad to actually keep up your performance levels and we haven’t been able to do that of late.”

There was one bright light in the game, which was the performance of Adam Lallana in front of England assistant manager Ray Lewington.

The Saints skipper scored the first goal and created the second for Rickie Lambert.

However, even that couldn’t lift Pochettino’s mood.

“I would probably change Lallana’s game to achieve a positive result,” he said.

“I would prefer to actually have a positive result than Lallana’s great game.

“When you talk about individual performances it’s great that he’s played and all credit to him but I think that’s a bit overshadowed when the main fact is that we weren’t able to get the win.”