Ronald Koeman has urged Saints to stay focused on this weekend’s game at Stoke as the excitement grows ahead of Mauricio Pochettino’s return to St Mary’s.

The game against Spurs a week on Saturday looks like being an absolute blockbuster, featuring not only Pochettino’s first trip back to the club he walked out on at the end of last season but also a potentially decisive game in the race for Europe.

Saints’ 2-0 victory over Hull last weekend, on the same day that Tottenham slipped to a shock home defeat to Aston Villa, lifted Koeman’s team above Spurs in the table, with games quickly running out.

Saints supporters would dearly love to see their club not only beat Pochettino’s team but also finish above them this season, after feeling betrayed by his actions when he quit for White Hart Lane.

But Koeman is trying not to get distracted by Spurs and is instead attempting to channel all his energy and focus towards Saturday’s game against Stoke, at the Britannia Stadium, which is another big one as Saints try to finish as high up the table as they can.

Koeman has urged others connected with the club to do the same, despite saying he does understand why so many people are talking about the Tottenham game already.

He said: “Yes, I can understand that, but next we play first Stoke City and the most important is always the next one and, ok, maybe after a good result we have time to think about Tottenham.

“It’s a great game, a lot of something for the fans to look forward, but we are professionals and we have to look to the next week.”

Saints are sixth in the Premier League table after the latest round of matches, five points off the Champions League positions, and, although Koeman has not written off their top-four hopes entirely, he knows that ambition remains more of an outside prospect at this stage.

Even if that does prove a bridge too far, his team are very much in a battle with Tottenham and Liverpool to finish fifth.

It’s something which Koeman thinks is perfectly achievable, but not if Saints play like they did in the first half against Hull, when they were far from their best.

“We can do, of course we can do,” he insisted, when asked whether Saints can finish above Liverpool and Spurs.

“But we have to play like the second half (against Hull) and if we play more games like the first half I think we will be the eighth of the league.”