Saints manager Ronald Koeman today held a press conference ahead of tomorrow night's Premier League game against Crystal Palace.

Here, the Daily Echo brings you the highlights of what he had to say.

On signs Saints are dropping off...

Daily Echo:

Left are 11 games and of course a little bit more difficult the results in the last few games.

We had a difficult period in the beginning of December. I think the reaction of the players was fantastic after that and I expect the same reaction in the last 11 games.

We look back what happened the last few games, struggling in scoring goals, but still I think we play out of a good organisation and we don’t receive a lot of goals but in an attacking way we have to improve ourselves and that is the question.

Tomorrow is a difficult one but the first out of 11 games but still we are in a high position in the table. The focus for the players is to win five of 11 games and 61 points and that means in my opinion European football.

On the lack of goals...

Of course it’s normal as the manager that you are a little bit worried about that because it’s more difficult.

One reason is now they know exactly the strengths of our team.

If you look back to the West Bromich game and you see the way how they played at home against Southampton that’s a big compliment for us.

I’m not critics to the way how they play because the coach is doing an amazing job with West Brom but it’s more difficult.

Watch back how Liverpool played against us, not with three at the back but five at the back and that means it’s more difficult to create and then you need the total confidence of the players.

If strikers are a little bit more struggling in scoring goals it’s a big part of our problem in that last few games.

It’s close to be like the beginning of the season and still we are creating chances but maybe we need more ruthless in the box, confidence in the box.

It’s a team question not individual like Pelle or the striker. It’s the whole team.

We need everybody to do the last part of attacking in a better way than we did in the last few games.

On his responsibility as the manager...

I think the most important is to be clear to the players and of course I changed the system but I changed the system against Everton because at that time I was thinking to change it because it was a difficult time and a little bit more defensive organisation.

The same reason we play against Crystal Palace and the opponent West Bromich last Saturday.

The frustration was that we received a goal after two minutes and that makes it more complicated the game to play.

We need to learn that always opponents can score goals with qualities of individual players.

The goal against West Brom we can’t accept because we knew how to defend but we didn’t have the concentration or organisation at that time.

The best is to have a clear message to the players of what we try do, what we try to reach and normally that is the 4-3-3 system.

On Crystal Palace...

Daily Echo: Alan Pardew

We know what we can expect of them.

They have a great run in away games in the last few weeks and a great win against West Ham scoring at set pieces. They are strong, good organisation and dangerous in counter attack.

We had a poor 45 minutes in FA Cup against them and our defending was poor first 45 minutes and they deserved goals. They had chances to score more goals.

They are a very dangerous team and we need to be good to score goals.

On Toby Alderweireld and team news...

Daily Echo: Toby Alderweireld

We have now our last session but normally if he passed well he will be one of the 18 players.

No injuries. No other team news.