Steven Davis believes Saints can benefit from a newfound streak of unpredictability.

The return to winning ways last Saturday, with a 3-0 victory over Everton, coincided with a switch to a fresh formation.

With injuries and suspensions having affected his options, manager Ronald Koeman produced a shrewd tactical move by changing the team’s shape to 3-5-2.

Saints adjusted to the system impressively, and Davis thinks having a different option to their normal 4-2-3-1 could allow them to catch opponents off-guard at times, as the season progresses.

“I thought it worked really well. I thought we were solid, hard to break down,” he said.

“Obviously, Everton have got players who can hurt you as well, especially attacking, so I felt we tamed them really well for large periods of the game and, obviously, created some good opportunities ourselves.

“Although we haven’t done too much work on it, I think there’s a lot of promise there for that formation.

“It’s important, I think, as a team to be able to play in different systems as well, because maybe some people could argue we were maybe getting a little bit predictable in terms of the way we were playing, and it’s nice to be able to freshen things up and go into a different system.”

Davis added: “We’d obviously set up in a similar way with little tweaks throughout the rest of the season, and maybe it took Everton a little bit by surprise and I’m sure that played its part itself in getting us a result, so we’re delighted and I thought that the boys took to the system really well.”

With the success against Everton having signalled the end of a run of five defeats, Davis is keen for Saints not to lose any impetus when they visit Crystal Palace on Boxing Day.

With games against Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United to follow, and with players hopefully returning from injuries and suspensions, rather than departing the team because of them, another three points would set them up well for what lies ahead.

“Momentum is a massive thing in football, and if you can put together a run of results then confidence starts to build and the game almost becomes a little bit easier, and it’s important,” he said.

“We’ll take confidence from the last performance and result, against Everton, into the Crystal Palace game and show the same effort and desire we did against Everton and hopefully pick up another result.”