Ryan Bertrand calls for more wins ahead of Southampton’s visit to Newcastle

Southampton defender Ryan Bertrand issued a rallying cry to his teammates ahead of the club’s crunch clash with Newcastle United on Saturday.

That visit to the North East has become a lot more important following Saints’ drab 0-0 draw against fellow Premier League strugglers Stoke City on the weekend.

Mauricio Pellegrino’s men have tied 13 games this season - a league high - and England international Bertrand admits collecting single points are not enough to stave off relegation.

“Everyone needs to stand up, and you can’t do anything else but look forward because the table is still very tight,” Bertrand told the Daily Echo following Saturday’s draw with Stoke.

He continued: “There are a lot of positives to take from how tight it is, so we just need to get the goals in and turn these goals into wins and it’s a completely different story.

“We need to get our wins, especially playing the teams close to us. Draws are just not good enough for us at the moment.”

Southampton were the better side in the latter stages of the Stoke game and Bertrand, who captained the team on Saturday, says the club should harness that positive momentum going into Saturday’s clash with Newcastle.

“We just applied more energy and just went up a notch in our intensity and we had them on the ropes, but we didn’t manage to score.

“It was a good way to finish. If you’re going to draw it is better to finish as the team in the ascendancy so we can take positive from that and move on.”