Southampton have offered a public backing to under-fire manager Nathan Jones.

The young coach, who came from Luton Town after the sacking of Ralph Hasenhuttl, is already under pressure.

Jones was in the spotlight at a recent fans' forum event this week, as his side have only won one of seven league games under his guidance.

Rasmus Ankersen, CEO of owners Sports Republic, stated: “It's no secret that if you keep losing games you cannot do that forever, at some point you hit the point where it's enough.

“I appreciate you're looking at it from the outside and have certain reference points and we are on the inside we have a lot more reference points.

“We see what goes on every day, we see the quality of the work carried out, relationship with the players.

“Do these things look right? Are we comfortable there is quality in the day-to-day work at we think over time will lead to better results?

“We are not happy with results, you're not happy with the result. Our job is to try and improve it.

“As long as we think the work being carried out by Nathan and team and players at the training ground every day is high quality then we have something to believe in that this is going to get better and we can turn it around.

“Another thing worth taking into consideration is we've just been through a transfer window where we've invested a significant amount of money trying to address some of these weaknesses the team has especially in creating chances and converting some of the chance we create.

“Nathan has been part of selecting these players and selling the project to them and I think it's fair he gets the chance to show what he can do with the weapons that he now has."