Saints have shattered their previous best start to a season and already secured more points at the start of November than they have managed until March in previous years.

It has taken Ronald Koeman’s men just 11 games to reach 25 points for this season, which sees them sitting second in the Premier League table with only Chelsea above them.

It is a remarkable feat, and an unprecedented one in terms of such early success for the club.

Since English football adopted three points for a win back in 1981/82, this is the fewest amount of games Saints have ever needed to reach the 25-point milestone.

Outside of the top flight they did narrowly miss out on that record as it took them 12 matches in their Championship promotion winning season of 2011/12, but before that you have to wind back around 30 years for the next best efforts.

Under Lawrie McMenemy, the club reached 25 points after 16 games three times in the space of four seasons – 1981/82, 1983/84 and 1984/85.

Those are considered the heydays of Saints in terms of the league as McMenemy guided them to seventh, second and fifth place respectively in those seasons.

Koeman has given Saints a chance of doing something similar with an even more amazing start this time out.

Over the course of the previous 33 seasons in which there have been three points awarded for a win, and across all three of the divisions the club has played in during that time, it has taken Saints an average of 21 matches to reach 25 points in a season.

That means they are ten games better off already.

Other than the promotion-winning Championship season, where the games are more tightly-packed in than a Premier League campaign, this is also the earliest date Saints have reached the milestone.

Indeed, in 14 of those previous 33 campaigns Saints haven’t managed to hit 25 points until after the turn of the New Year.

In their worst season it took them until March to reach a milestone they achieved this year at the start of November.

The most pitiful effort was the season they were relegated from the Premier League in 2204/05 when they failed to get 25 points until March 20, some 30 matches into the campaign.

Saints have already won two more league games this season than they did in the whole of that campaign.

The achievement is also put into context by the statistic that no side has ever won the Premier League title with less than 18 points after 11 games.

Only Chelsea, Saints and Manchester City have reached that target this season.