Saints can’t get on goal trail

MARK HUGHES wants to use the ripple effect for his misfiring forwards – listening to the sound of the ball hitting the net.

Only four Premier League teams have had more shots than Southampton’s

124 goal attempts this season – but none has a lousier conversion rate than their

4.8 per cent ratio.

If you were a condemned man facing execution, you’d want Hughes’ strikers to be the firing squad – because they would keep missing and you’d live to be 100.

Rare

One win in nine games, and 385 minutes without a goal, has left Saints boss Hughes under pressure.

Manolo Gabbiadini’s miss in added time and fellow substitute Stuart Armstrong’s dithering six yards out left Southampton with only a rare clean sheet for comfort.

When Newcastle, another team who can’t hit a barn door with a muckspreader, come calling at St Mary’s next weekend, it is unlikely to be a riot of goals.

Asked how he cured scoring droughts in his heyday as a robust forward, Hughes said: “I was a little bit streaky in my time – I was a 10-to-15-goals-a-year man, which was a decent return because I was have. Our chance conversion rate is poor, so we’ve got to try to address that.”

Rippling nets? Between them, Bournemouth and Saints couldn’t have made a ripple in the surf on nearby Boscombe beach. The Cherries, normally so fluent, were off the boil.

But for Hughes, the lack of goals is a big concern. He knows Saints have to back up a hard-earned derby point with a home win against rock-bottom Newcastle.

Winger Nathan Redmond, who laid Gabbiadini’s late chance on a plate, said: “Nine times out of 10 Gabbi scores that in training but it wasn’t his day and we’ll take the point.

“Those are the small margins you live with in the Premier League.”