Saints may have beaten Sunderland 8-0 last weekend but that still didn’t stop Ronald Koeman giving his side a dressing down when they returned to training.

The Saints boss was naturally delighted with the end result, but was not happy with the way the first 20 minutes of the match went.

The squad were given Monday and Tuesday off but were in for a bit of a shock when they turned up at Staplewood on Wednesday morning for their debrief.

“Already after the game they spoke about next week and the players had two days off on Monday and Tuesday and starting on Wednesday we showed the players some clips of the first 20 minutes because it wasn’t the way I like to start a game at home,” said Koeman.

“We showed that to the players and we showed the goals and everything but they know exactly what happened.

“It wasn’t a good start in the game but sometimes it’s difficult to talk about because the result is 8-0.

“We know we can start much better than we did last weekend.”

It’s exactly that perfectionist attitude that has helped drive Saints to a fantastic start to the season.

Koeman admits his team have lost the surprise factor now but that they won’t be taking their foot off of the gas after one big win, no matter how their opponents try to stop them.

“Everybody knows after eight games the qualities of the Southampton team,” he confessed.

“They know that we score a lot of goals and if you make it an open game and you try to attack and you get a lot of space it will be a problem for our opponents, but it’s up to them.

“We can’t think about it, for the manager of Stoke is the decision of how they come and what they plan to do in a tactical way.

“We have to prepare ourselves and we like to play at home like we do away, try to play football, with attractive football, and score goals and out of good organisation.

“We scored a lot of goals but we only conceded five goals and that’s the quality to win games, not only to score goals but keeping clean sheets is important in football.”

He added: “For sure because it is not a normal result (against Sunderland).

“It gave us a lot of attention and positive publicity and it is nice to live in that but I am a long time in football and it’s always difficult after that kind of result because you have to prepare yourself for the next one.

“What is in the past doesn’t count any more.

“It will be difficult against Stoke this Saturday.”