Southampton legend Matt Le Tissier says beating the drop will depend on strengthening the defence.

Le Tissier reckons their insistence on strengthening their strikeforce rather than shoring up their backline has lead to their current plight.

"There weren't too many teams that spent more money than us in the summer," he told talkSPORT.

"A lot of people at the start of the season were saying that we needed to strengthen, certainly in the centre-back department and in the left-back department and I thought it was quite strange that we went out and spent so much money on the forward guys.

"We already had some good attacking threats. Billy Sharp in pre-season was probably our sharpest forward. I think he scored five or six goals. More than any of the other players and yet he was the one farmed out on loan to make way for the new guys coming in.

"I don't think it helps that Nigel Adkins isn't really settled on who his number one goalkeeper is as he's been chopping and changing the keepers. We've had three already and that's probably not helped the defensive situation either."