Ronald Koeman believes Saints can still realistically target qualification for the Europa League.

Wild talk of a top four finish has died down a little after three back-to-back defeats at the hands of Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United.

But after 15 games of the season Saints still find themselves in an impressive fifth place in the Premier League and Koeman thinks they could stay there.

When asked if the Europa League was now the aim this season, Koeman replied: “I think so.

“We are always trying the maximum but we have to understand our situation, we have to be realistic and maybe that will be the target for this season.

“To do something is everything about the way of playing. If you keep believing in that it makes points and winning games but maybe that’s a realistic situation for our team, yes.”

There is now perhaps a little less pressure on Saints after the last week.

After packed press conferences of journalists for pre-match games, it was back to a small handful at Staplewood yesterday.

Koeman though insists he is not paying too much attention to the league table himself.

“We like always the best place in the league because that’s nice,” he admitted.

“Maybe to be the fifth now on the list is a little bit normal for Southampton but we like to do the maximum what we can and, if that means the fifth place, then OK it’s the fifth place.

“It’s not good always to watch the table list because I believe more in the players and the way we play and then we will win games and also lose games because we have not an unbeatable team and that’s normal.”

Saints hope to get back to winning ways tomorrow as they face Burnley at Turf Moor, but for Koeman there is no easing up just because they aren’t facing one of the Premier League’s established giants.

“For that not because it’s always a big test for every team,” he insisted.

“We know the Premier League, there isn’t an easy game, you have to fight for the points and it will be a more physical game than last Monday against Man United.

“They play different, they have a different type of players and we know it will be a difficult one, but not more or less difficult than the last one.”

Saints will be hoping that their frontline fires again.

Graziano Pelle got himself on the scoresheet in the 2-1 win over Manchester United but errors at the back and up front cost them “We did it well in an attacking way in the first half against Manchester United because in five or six moments in the game if we played a good pass, if we played the right pass, if we had the good movement then already we had to score three times,” reckoned Koeman.

“We didn’t create that because not (Sadio) Mane, not Shane (Long), not Dusan (Tadic) was in my opinion 100 per cent in quality what they have.

“Shane missed two good chances. The first one was a big one, the second one was a header and I think it’s good goalkeeping.

“Dusan didn’t have really some passes are too fast or too slow sometimes but that’s normal, it’s not always the player are acting 100 per cent in the best performance that they can.

“The problem last Monday was we made two mistakes in defence but I think when the strikers were in a better shape we didn’t lose that game.”