Ronald Koeman insists Saints can maintain their top four position until the end of the season despite a disappointing home defeat to Swansea.

Jonjo Shelvey’s second half strike proved the difference between the sides at St Mary’s as Saints suffered defeat on a weekend that saw their near rivals collect wins.

There is no doubt the loss was a blow, but Koeman remains confident.

“It’s difficult but there wasn’t one moment that we think we can’t keep this,” said the Saints boss.

“We know that it’s very difficult because about the rest of the teams and the position in the table still after this defeat is not normal for Southampton, but we keep going.

“What we did after some defeats in December we came back and I’m sure about the belief of the players, of the spirit of the players, that we will keep going and we will see at the end of the season what the position is for Southampton.”

He added: “It’s not hard but we can expect that teams like Arsenal, like Tottenham, like Liverpool that they win games because they are big teams, they have good players.

“I am not surprised they will come back and for us it’s difficult to keep the position in the table.

“We have to be very good every game and like today if not the individual player is on his best level then what happens in football it’s more difficult and we know that.”

Saints dominated possession against Swansea but struggled to create many chances.

They were hit by a sucker punch as Shelvey drilled home the winner from distance in the second period, and finished the game with ten men after Ryan Bertrand’s late red card.

“Of course frustrated because I didn’t think we deserved to lose today because in my opinion we played very good in the first 45 minutes, we had some good chances, we had total domination in the game,” reflected Koeman.

Daily Echo:

“After 45 minutes I was happy about the team, not about not scoring because we had to score at least one time in the first 45 minutes.

“If you don’t score it’s more difficult to keep that domination in the game.

“In the second half we had less control in the game but maybe the most lucky team won today and that’s football.”