BOSS Ralph Hasenhuttl admitted "there's definitely a lot of work to do" for Saints to recover their impressive form of a few months ago.

Saints were one of the most impressive sides during Project Restart, but have made a disappointing start to the 2020-21 season.

Hasenhuttl's men lost 1-0 at Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday, before slumping to a 2-0 defeat against Championship Brentford in the Carabao Cup tonight.

"At the moment some players are not at the level we have seen them in the past," admitted Hasenhuttl.

"There are some reasons why. We had no pre-season, we had no time to work together and definitely we are physically at a different level than when we came back after the lockdown.

"The players took three weeks off and definitely we are not in the position at the moment for our game. It’s very intense, we need to have fit players.

"There’s definitely a lot of work to do."

He added: "The fitness of some of the players you can definitely see we are not quick enough at the moment. I think we are not at the same level.

"You know our history in the past, you know we can be competitive when we have all the players at the highest level and working together, on our automatism, on our shape.

"At the moment it seems that we have problems in, I wouldn’t say every part of our game, but in a few parts of our game."