Jay Rodriguez put 15 months of pain behind him as he marked his long awaited Saints comeback with two goals.

The 25-year-old has been out since rupturing his ACL at Manchester City in April 2014, with two operations and a couple of setbacks having forced him to spend the whole of last season on the sidelines.

After so long out there was never any guarantees as to exactly what sort of Rodriguez would return, but he gave a clear signal of his intent with a brace against RB Leipzig.

Although it couldn’t save Saints from defeat in their first pre-season friendly of the summer, it was more than enough to lift the spirits of fans after hearing that Toby Alderweireld had decided to move to Tottenham.

Rodriguez did have an outside chance of figuring for the first team at the end of last season as his rehabilitation stepped up, but Saints opted to give him a full summer to ensure he was fully recuperated.

And how Rodriguez proved that is most certainly the case.

The top scorer from two seasons ago stepped off the bench at half time and took just eight minutes to get straight back on the scoresheet, before adding another in the dying moments of the game.

Two of Saints’ summer signings also scored in the shape of Cedric Soares and Juanmi.

Those three bagging the goals was without doubt the highlight of the evening for Saints.

Though the result is irrelevant at this stage, and even accepting that Ronald Koeman fielded an inexperienced side while still resting his international stars, he was not happy at conceding five.

The German second division side did at least prove live opposition, which often is not the case at this stage of pre-season, and therefore the game was the kind of workout Saints would want.

Leipzig struck first in the match with Nils Quaschner getting past Maarten Stekelenburg and finishing from a tight angle.

However, that lead lasted just a minute before Juamni sidefooted home Lloyd Isgrove’s cutback.

Koeman made seven changes at half time while Leipzig changed their entire side.

This was the moment that Rodriguez entered the fray.

He made his mark quickly with a goal on 53 minutes as he squeezed a left footed volley in at the keeper’s near top corner after a cross from Sam McQueen.

The see-saw nature of the game continued though with Timo Mauer, Tim Sebastian and Zsolt Kalmar scoring three goals in ten minutes to put Leipzig 4-2 ahead.

They then got another as Patrick Strauß fired home.

Saints continued to press forward though and Soares slotted home after a chipped pass from Armani Little.

Soares then laid on a right wing cross in the final moments of the game which Rodriguez headed home at the far post to complete the scoring.

There was little doubt that Rodriguez’s double was the big talking point of the evening and Koeman told the club’s website: “It was his first 45 minutes and he did well.

“He scored two good goals. That gives everyone a positive feeling about tonight and for sure the same for Jay.”

He added: “Nine goals. That’s not always good but that’s not the most important at the moment.

“The most important is we get minutes, and of course we had a lot of under-21 players.

“You saw the difference between Leipzig and Southampton about the physical stage at the moment. They started three weeks earlier than us and they have already played two friendlies.

“But I’m happy about the minutes and the physical game what we had. We scored some great goals and the positive things were two goals and the first 45 minutes of Jay.

“Also we had the first goal of Juanmi, the first goal of Cedric Soares. A lot of positive things, and what I said before, the result is not the most important.”

After fielding a young side Koeman was convinced it was a learning experience.

“In general it was okay, but you see sometimes they need too much time to play the ball,” he reflected.

“It’s more speed, everything is going faster and that’s good for the young boys to improve that. That’s always positive. They can do mistakes and if they learn from it, that’s good.”

Saints: Stekelenburg (K Davis 46), McCarthy, Stephens, Turnbull (Wood 46), Debayo (Soares 69), Gape, Reed (Little 46), Ramirez (McQueen 46), Isgrove (Hesketh 46), Juanmi (Seager 46 (Long 69)), Gallagher (Rodriguez 46).