Ronald Koeman may be a much calmer character than Nigel Pearson but has insisted he is not shy in telling his players what he thinks.

The Saints boss was very unhappy with what he described as his side’s worst performance of the season as they lost to Sunderland last weekend and made his feelings known in the dressing room after the game.

Former Saints boss Pearson, whose Leicester side welcome Saints to the King Power Stadium this afternoon, has picked up a reputation for his short fuse, highlighted just a couple of weeks by a rant at a journalist that he later apologised for.

Koeman insisted there is no right or wrong way to manage a team, but he is comfortable with his cool, calm and collected public persona.

He said: “You can’t change characters of managers. Not everybody is the same and that’s good.

“He apologised himself for the last week. I think you always, no matter how difficult it sometimes is, you need to always respect press and sometimes they make things very difficult.

“I don’t know why but maybe that’s his character. Sometimes it’s nice and sometimes it’s not nice what he did last week.”

Speaking about the differences between himself and Pearson he added: “That’s the character of the people. I am like this and of course sometimes I am very upset or very not happy but even to the players I told them after the match, I tell them really what I think at that moment. I will defend the players in the press but between the walls in the dressing room I will tell them and it was not positive.”

Saints are aiming to bounce back from their loss at Sunderland with a victory over Leicester that will, temporarily at least, lift them above Tottenham and into sixth place.

However, Koeman knows they will have to perform much better this time out to get a result against the Foxes, who have won five of their six matches to give themselves a real chance of survival.

“It’s poor. Last week was really poor,” admitted Koeman.

“We know that we are Southampton and I don’t think that we will win all the games in the season but we play so bad in our ball possession, I showed the players, inside one minute and 40 seconds, I put 22 clips together of all the mistakes in our ball possession and how do you like to win when you play like that.

“It’s the same with Leicester, they will press and they’ll play aggressive and every time you lose the ball it gives them a lift to play at home.”