Tigers trip to 'get the juices flowing' for Saints

But he has again reiterated the emphasis on performances rather than results after playing down the significance of Saints' winless start to the season.

The black, green and gold have been beaten in all three of their games, meaning they will not make it through to the knockout stages of the Premiership Rugby Cup.

Attention now turns to the final pool match, which comes at Welford Road this weekend, and, ultimately, the start of the Gallagher Premiership campaign, at Saracens on October 19.

And Ferguson said: "It's a little trip up the road this weekend and that will certainly get the juices flowing.

"It matters for us because it's the next game for this club and this group.

"Obviously there's extra spice in it because it's Tigers, but the next game is always the most important.

"We've got to go back to that process we worked on last year and we will prepare well.

"If we prepare well, it will take us into performance and if we perform well, we can get a good result not only this week, but also against Saracens the week after."

And when asked whether the players and coaches were worried about the lack of wins so far, Ferguson said: "The whole of last season under Boydy's (Saints boss Chris Boyd) remit of preparation and performance, we didn't talk about results.

"We talked about our performance and preparing well to make that performance happen.

"At the business end of the year, we managed to find ourselves where we were (in the Premiership play-offs).

"There's no difference now. Every game we play, we want to prepare well and we try to perform.

"Whether we perform well or we don't, we review it exactly the same way so there's just another process for us.

"There are clearly some things we need to iron out and 90 per cent of that will be killed off by making sure we win the physical battles in every game we play.

"We'll have a look at the things we've tried and the things we don't want to take forward and then give ourselves the best possible chance of performing at Leicester.

"That will then given us the best chance of performing at Saracens a week on Saturday."