Ronald Koeman has urged his Saints players to enjoy being second in the league table – but insists there will be no let up as they push forward.

A 1-0 victory over Stoke saw Saints leapfrog Manchester City into second with only Chelsea standing between them and the summit.

It has been a record breaking start to the season – Saints enjoying their best ever opening to a top flight campaign with 19 points from nine games – and one which Koeman insists the players and the fans should savour while realising the job is far from done.

He said: “Maybe the people are not surprised anymore about our performances, about our qualities, but OK, it’s nice to watch the table list and enjoy the Sunday but Monday we start again to prepare for next Wednesday.

“It’s great for the fans to see Southampton up in the list and we enjoy but we know we have to work hard.

“We showed that and nothing else.

“It’s too early to say what you like to win.

“We like to win every game.

“We live game by game and I think that’s the best solution against high expectations.

“OK, we have a fantastic start of the season and we enjoy the second position in the table list and Wednesday’s a new one.”

Saints have taken full advantage of stumbling starts from teams you would traditionally have expected to have challenged for the top four.

Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham, Everton and Arsenal have all had patchier form than expected.

Koeman believes it is a bonus for Saints that they don’t have European commitments this season but also knows that the squad depth of the big teams could prove a crucial factor if injuries hit.

“You can make up your mind until now – we played nine games but maybe we deserved more points because we lost against Liverpool and we deserved more against Liverpool. We deserved more against Tottenham,” he reflected.

“I see the rest of the teams and City have a great team, Chelsea is maybe the most complete at this moment but the rest of them didn’t show until now they had a better team than us.

“If you don’t play European football that means you have more time during the week for training sessions and, of course, if you have a lot of changes in the team and a lot of new players you like to try and show how you like to play.

“Maybe (there is an opportunity this season) because they have a tough programme with the Champions League but one quality that they have is 24 or 26 international good players and we don’t have 26 – that’s maybe the one difference between the big ones and Southampton.

“Injuries are a part of football and we try to keep everybody in a good physical state and of course if we have a lot of injuries it’s difficult to continue like this.

“I know that but I’m not afraid about that.”

Despite their success Koeman is not expecting teams to approach playing Saints in a different way.

“I don’t think teams think in the beginning it will be an easy one because they have experience and know the Premier League and there is never an easy game,” he admitted.

“Maybe if you scored like last week it can be easy but this was a tough one and maybe it was nicer to win in this way than last week.”