RONALD Koeman admitted goalscoring hero Shane Long has taken time to adapt to his new role at Saints.

The Saints boss was understandably delighted as second half sub Long came off the bench to score twice in the space of five minutes to bag Saints another three points against Leicester at St Mary’s.

It was Long’s first league goals for the club, and came after he had netted only once in his previous 16 league games for Saints and Hull.

Prior to scoring twice against the Foxes, Long had not scored for 570 minutes in the league – a run stretching back to last April.

Long joined Saints for £12m in the summer and has had to get used to playing off of Graziano Pelle or in an attacking wing role.

Koeman admits that has taken time but says trying to work on the team’s positioning rather than running has paid dividends.

He said: “He (Long) was playing at Hull and he was playing in the centre forward position and that’s different to how he has to play in our team.

“I spoke to Shane about that and we do a lot of position games and position training sessions and he was not used to doing that.

“It’s not about running in football.

OK, you need to run behind the ball and need to be physical, but still I am a coach who likes to have and dominate the ball and that’s all about good position.

“It’s not about running. The more you run, the less you see.

“That was difficult for Shane in the beginning but little by little he is improving and we are very happy to have Shane in our squad.”

He added: “I spoke to Shane before we signed Shane and the first option is to play as the nine position, the target man, and that is Graziano Pelle.

“You can play behind him, what we did against Stoke for the Capital One Cup, and you can play from the left and the right wing position.

“I know he’s not really a wing player but how he scored the first goal that we liked to have and he is understanding this much better than in the beginning and he made the difference.”

It hasn’t been easy for Long to get a run in the team with the forward players having been in such great form this season.

But two goals will be exactly what he needs for his confidence.

“Shane is doing very well and he had some in the beginning adaptation problems about how we play and train because it was much different to what he had in the past,” reflected Koeman.

“You have to talk to the player that he will keep that confidence but he was starting the last two games.

“I think that is really a good team – it’s not about 11 players but the whole squad that we have.

“It’s fantastic for me if you change a player and you score two times. It’s not always like that.”