After a weekend when Sadio Mane is being suspected of trying to engineer a move by poor discipline Steven Davis has spoken of how the rest of the squad are unified.

Speaking to the Daily Echo Steven Davis perhaps Saints most consistent player this season has scotched reports that Sadio Mane's exploits will affect squad morale.

“By no means is it a squad full of doom and gloom in there,” explained the Northern Irishman.

“The situation we’re in isn’t ideal in terms of the last four or five weeks, because of the results.

“But there’s still a lot of belief in the squad that we can go on and have a strong season.

“We need to do something about that sooner rather than later, though. “

But Davis did admit that the loss of Mane in the starting line up was a blow to Saints and if he had started it might well have been a different result.

“It’s maybe not ideal, but I don’t want to put too much emphasis on that in terms of the result today because the performance in the first-half was good,”

“Ultimately the performance was good, barring a couple of incidents. It’s just so frustrating not to come away with anything.”

He added: “He’s (Mane) an important player to us and he’s the type of player that can create something out of nothing.

“There’s not too many of them around so, of course, he plays a massive role and that was the decision the manager made.”

With injuries to Pelle and Jay Rodriguez Saints were short of attacking options at Norwich , but Ronald Koeman was right to drop Mane, despite as Steven Davis confirmed that he is a vital component in the Saints side.

But even vital components cannot do as they please and Koeman faces a dilemma in which to some it seems that Mane and Victor Wanyama are picked despite sub standard performances of late, Manchester United are linked with Mane but he is not exciting their supporters who look at a record of only 3 goals in 20 games this season and feel he is not the man to end their own goal scoring problems.

In my mind Ronald Koeman needs to stay strong as he did on Saturday and not let players dictate to him what he does, even if that means dropping them.

If we are to rise up the League then we need a strong team spirit, better to foster that and not have Sadio Mane in the starting line up than risk upsetting the whole squad by pandering to ill disciplined players in the hope that we can persuade them to sign new contracts.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters