Ronald Koeman believes Saints’ trip to Austria stands them in good stead for the rest of pre-season, even though they return without a positive result.

The Saints boss is understandably more concerned with fitness levels and the sharpness of his team than results at this stage, with Saints having lost in their friendly with RB Leipzig, and in both of their 45 minute Audi Quattro Cup matches against Valencia and Red Bull Salzburg.

“I’m not that happy of course but what I said before, the result at this stage of the pre-season is not the most important,” Koeman told the club website.

“For some players it was the first 45 minutes, it was hot out there, it was difficult because we play against good teams.

“We were a little bit unlucky to go 1-0 down against Valencia. We had some good chances to score and two times we hit the bar. That’s unlucky.

“The second game there was less for us. They scored twice, and more sharpness what we expect from the players but we know it’s only the first week for most of them. We have to do more.

“We start Monday the third week of pre-season, little by little the players will get more minutes and go more to the team.”

Saints have now returned home for a few days before heading out to Holland for the next stage of pre-season, but Koeman is pleased with how things have gone thus far.

“We had a good week,” he reflected.

“We stayed together and it was good adaptation for the new players. We are ready for the next one now.”