Koeman hails fine performance

Southampton manager Ronald Koeman has hailed Southampton’s 1-0 win away at Sunderland as his side managed to defend well and then find the cutting edge going forward, striking the perfect balance.

The win extends Southampton’s excellent run of form that has seen them win six of their last eight in all competitions and two clean sheets in a row. Add to this that they are still unbeaten away from home this season, it is shaping up to be another fantastic season for the Saints.

It may not have been the most clinical performance from the Saints but they managed to keep a consistently high level of performance throughout the match, something they have been criticized for not doing this season, which has pleased Ronald Koeman.

I was very pleased. Of course we knew it would be difficult to create a lot of big chances, we had one in the first 45 minutes from Dušan.

But we had total domination in the game and we were by far the better team. The best what we had was a good transition when we lost the ball.

We had straight away good pressing to them and they had difficulties to play out of the back. That was the key to winning the game.

I mentioned at half time that we needed to keep pressing and wait because normally we have enough qualities to score that goal, but we kept a defensive organisation and that was also very good.

We had a lot of possession but it was not easy to create chances because there was not a lot of space between the lines.

They had strong defending and they defended well, but then you have to be patient and score in the right moment.

Southampton defended very well throughout the match, with Sunderland being limited to very few chances, Koeman bringing on Steven Caulker late on just further helped to solidify the back line.