Southampton star issues warning ahead of facing bottom side Preston | Daily Echo

Preston have collected just five points from 14 matches, and Saints are determined to avoid giving them rare encouragement.

Manning wants Saints to start aggressively at Deepdale today, take control and prevent the home crowd from lifting their struggling side.

The defender also believes Saints must improve their away form if they are to win the league, despite wins at Norwich and West Ham.

Manning told the Daily Echo: "I think that's the Championship in a nutshell. There's no easy game; form means not much in this league.

Prepping for Preston. 🔋 https://t.co/evxMZSF0mZ

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“Anyone can beat anyone. I think for us it's just making sure that when we turn up on Saturday, start on the front foot and are aggressive.

“I think we just need to make sure that we're at it. We can show our quality and dominate the game, which is what we want to do.

"They're a team capable of producing a performance, so it's just making sure that we give our full attention and make sure that we're at it."

Manning continued: “We've made some statement results with beating teams that are around us in the table at the time.

"I think with Swansea and QPR, and I think Millwall at the time, they had not conceded anything in the first three or four games.

“And then we scored five past them, so I think we've really made an emphasis on it, but at the same time we can still do even better.

"We need to make sure that our away form starts to pick up. I know we had the big result against West Ham, but we need to pick up more.

“We've done well to fight back and climb up the table to the point where we're in the mix with the minus four, with some good performances.”