Mauricio Pochettino says he is pleased that Mark Clattenburg has been assigned to referee Saints again.

The official will take charge of Saturday’s trip to West Ham – the first time he has been handed one of the club’s matches since they made a formal complaint about his conduct.

Saints were upset by a comment supposedly made to Lallana by Clattenburg during the 2-1 defeat away to Everton in late December.

The referee was alleged to have told the midfielder: “You are very different now, since you’ve played for England – you never used to be like this.”

Saints took their case to both the Football Association and the referees’ body, the PGMOL, but both ruled that no action would be taken against Clattenburg.

The club initially said they did not feel that the Durham official could take charge of a Saints game while the matter was unresolved, although Pochettino subsequently said he would be happy for him to do so.

When asked about the matter today, the manager explained that he will be pleased to see Clattenburg this weekend.

“I’m not worried at all about that,” he said. “If I’m completely honest, I’m happy that he’s going to be refereeing.

“What’s happened in the past stays in the past.

“The fact that he’s refereeing will make a situation that was completely taken out of context in the past and will try to make it a normal situation for this game.

“It’s clear that all parties made mistakes during that time, during that incident, and it’s also clear that refereeing is a very tough profession, a tough job, and us, Southampton as a club, as a team, we’re going to be helping him as much as possible to make his job as easy as possible.

“For us it’s a case that’s closed. Now we just want to move on and make things normal again with the referee and the squad.”

Pochettino added: “Overall, I think we’re a friendly club, that we have friendly players, and that’s what we want to be seen as.”

Pochettino also said he did not expect the atmosphere to be anything other than amicable when Lallana and Clattenburg come face-to-face.

“Adam is a player and person who only thinks about football,” he said.

“He doesn’t like to be involved in this kind of situation and he’s also a very shy person.

“I’m sure that his focus is going to be 100 per cent on the game and I’m sure that he’ll say ‘Hi’ to Mr Clattenburg without any problems.”