Southampton defender Wesley Hoedt believes his side need to win four of their last five games to avoid relegation to the Championship, the Daily Echo reports.
Saints currently sit in the bottom three of the Premier League, five points from safety and are looking ever more Championship bound.
Southampton have won just five games all season, but Hoedt believes that his side need to win four of their remaining five games to secure Premier League survival.
Hoedt spoke of the chances of his team completing a dramatic turn around in results after a poor season leaves them looking increasingly likely to head down to the second tier.
We showed the last two games against good opponents that we are there but it’s important to take points.
There are 15 points left and we need 12 of them. That’s up to us.
I don’t know if it’s realistic but you have to set your goals.
I think that’s what we need and if you see how we played the last two games we deserved more points but it’s the Premier League and they don’t give points away so easily.
Southampton travel away to an out-of-form Leicester City side tomorrow night with a win desperately needed.
Hoedt went on to speak of the defeat his side suffered to Chelsea at the weekend after going 2-0 up before conceding three goals in eight minutes to throw the game away.
It was hard to take the loss because we played really well for the first 70 minutes and in ten minutes we gave it away.
It was hard to take because especially if you watched the game before against Arsenal I think we deserved more as well, so that’s four points we throw away in two games.
I think if you see how good we played for the first 70 minutes in my opinion Chelsea had nothing to say in our stadium. We had a chance for more goals as well and we didn’t take them.
They made an amazing goal and we just completely collapsed and this is something that cannot happen at this level of football.
Despite the weekend’s result and being five points off safety, Hoedt still believes his side are capable of getting the points required to maintain their Premier League status for another season.
I think so (we can stay up). If not it’s not even worth playing any more.
I think the whole team showed in the last two games that we are still there and we have to show that in the last five games against opponents that also need points but we need them more.
We need to keep calm and we need to play and for sure we don’t need to concede so easy because then it’s difficult to play.
We played with three at the back the last two games so we need more confidence, and be more compact like we showed the first 70 minutes against Chelsea and that’s what we have to show against Leicester as well.
We need to go for the win whatever happens.
