Ryan Bertrand has indicated he would like to sign for Saints on a permanent basis next summer.

The left-back is currently with the club until the end of the season, having arrived on loan from Chelsea in July.

Saints possess an option to buy the 25-year-old once the campaign ends, for a fee believed to be about £10m, and manager Ronald Koeman has already said he wants to take it up.

When asked for his own thoughts, Bertrand revealed he would be keen to sign.

“I think it is one of them things where I’ve got to wait and see,” he said.

“For me, there’s no reason why not, to be honest.

“There is a good base to the club – we’re pulling in the right direction, we have fantastic fans, fantastic players, a fantastic manager and the coaching staff.

“It has been a good experience for me so far, so I don’t see why not.”

Saints are the seventh club that Bertrand has been loaned out to during his career so far, and it has been something of a rarity for him to spend an entire season in one place.

He has, therefore, enjoyed the prospect of some stability at St Mary’s.

“For me, it is a first in many aspects, especially with the consistency of football I’m getting,” he said.

“I am pleased with the way it has started, but you know there is a lot more work to be done.

“As a team we’re only going to get better, individually I am only going to improve.”

When the opportunity to join Saints presented itself in the summer, Bertrand explained it was one he had no doubts about grasping.

“For me, throughout the last few years, it has been a solid club,” he said.

“They have got really high expectations of themselves, the people behind the scenes.

“They really want to achieve great things and are doing it the right way, by getting good players and getting them to play the right way in the right system.

“For me, once they told me who they were bringing in and I saw the players they already had, I was more than confident.

“Being a footballer, you actually know what a player can do and I was more than confident.”

Bertrand has been in superb form since arriving at Saints, and has been a key part of the side that boasts the best defensive record in the Premier League, with Saturday’s 1-0 win over Stoke representing their fifth clean sheet of the campaign.

“We’re very proud, very proud defensively to get five clean sheets,” he said.

“But it is not just us. It was the way we pressed from the front (on Saturday), because the attackers and midfielders really help us out.

“It is a real team effort when we get clean sheets and the attackers and midfielders were very good for us.”

Bertrand, who has formed an exciting partnership with Sadio Mane down the left-hand side, even revealed that he was more thrilled with the Senegalese winger’s defensive contribution against Stoke than his match-winning strike.

“He made a very important tackle in the middle of the pitch as well – I was more happy about that than his goal, to be honest,” he said, with a laugh.