Southampton's Mauricio Pellegrino leaps to Alan Pardew's defence in the wake of West Brom's ill-fated trip to Barcelona

Southampton boss Mauricio Pellegrino has defended Alan Pardew’s ill-fated Barcelona training trip as the West Bromwich Albion head coach fights to keep control at The Hawthorns.

Pellegrino’s men piled further pressure on Pardew by ending Albion’s involvement in the FA Cup on Saturday just two days after the ‘taxi-gate’ affair that added to West Brom’s season of woe.

Pardew had won just one of his 13 Premier League games in charge before four senior players broke a curfew and allegedly stole a taxi in Barcelona in the early hours of Thursday.

Jonny Evans, Gareth Barry, Jake Livermore and Boaz Myhill apologised for staying out late but their actions heaped further scrutiny on Pardew in a week when West Brom had already sacked their chairman and chief executive.

Pellegrino, however, had sympathy with his opposite number’s decision to take his players abroad. “I have done that all my life; decisions about who goes to a break, the training ground, the training camp – two days, seven days, 10 days, three weeks, I have never had any problem,” he said.

“Sometimes when I was a player a manager would say ‘have one day off, go out and enjoy’. Today, when players are out together they have to be 100 per cent of the time aware of their behaviour but I have never had a problem.

“I don’t like to talk about the other team. Today there so are many informations about football, football is so important in our culture. But I don’t know if this type of news affects or not the performance on the pitch, to be honest.

“But the players today are really professional; it is impossible to play at this level if you are not professional. But everybody makes mistakes. The problem is that everybody knows these lads, they are famous, they are the TV every single week. There is a lot of news around these teams.

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“But I don’t know if it affects their performance on the pitch. I think the players here are very professional. I was a player at Liverpool too. I know a lot of British players in my dressing room.

“They are all very professional because the pressure for them is to be out there on the pitch, to be on top of preparation, to be on top of nutrition, to rest – it is really hard to play at this level. Sometimes they have the right to enjoy themselves.”

Pardew’s own position is under intense scrutiny with six Premier League games ahead against teams outside the top six that will define the Baggies’ top-flight future.

“I think it (the scrutiny) is fair in terms of the results and the decision to take the guys away that I thought was the right decision,” Pardew said. “We had had some tough results. I don’t know the players and seen them socially too much.

“We cancelled the Christmas things. We have not really done anything socially. So for it to backfire on me like that was unfortunate. But it happened. I have to accept that.

“In terms of this week I am an experienced manager. Trust me, I will be there Monday morning bright and early to try to get ourselves ready for Huddersfield.”