MARK Hughes reckons Saints just had a ‘blip’ last season and are now ready to try and break back into the Premier League’s top half.

Last season’s 17th-place finish marked the end of a run of four successive campaigns in which Saints finished in the elite’s top eight.

Hughes came in and saved the club from relegation after Mauricio Pellegrino was sacked in mid-March, but now the experienced Welshman is tasked with taking Saints back up to where they once were.

"We’ve had a blip. We hope it is, we suspect it is, last year in terms of how the season panned out.” he said.

“We don’t want to go down that road again. We’ve made purchases with a view to not allowing that happening again. "

Saints spent £51m in the transfer window and brought in Danny Ings on loan ahead of a £16m permanent switch next summer on deadline day.

While Saints were no means among the Premier League’s top spenders, with ten clubs splashing more money on players than them, Hughes’ ambition is still to surge back up the table.

“There is no reason why we can’t,” he said. “Expectation here is always we are a top level club and a top half club. That I why everyone was so disappointed last year.

“We will try and achieve that again.

“The top six do have a massive advantage in this league given the resources and the qualities they have.

“You have just got to be ready if one of those top six, top seven take their eye off the ball or don’t quite have the season everybody expects, you have got to be ready to be the one to take their place.

"That is how we will approach the season, to try and get ourselves in a position to capitalise on that.”

However, in his press conference ahead of today's league opener against Burnley, Hughes admitted it’s uncertain as to how Saints will fare with so many other clubs spending big.

However, the 54-year-old is happy with the squad the club have assembled this summer, having signed five new players.

“We can’t guarantee [a blip won't happen again] because a lot of clubs have spent a lot of money this window,” he said. 

“Everybody has strengthened. From our point of view we are happy where we are. We strengthened every area of the squad, from back to front.

“For us, we’re here, we’re ready to go. We’ve got a group of players that were from their own point of view disappointed from what they produced last year. Individually and absolutely collectively.

“So they want to put that right. So we’ve got a motivated squad. We’re at the point now where we’re ready to go."