Mark Hughes has told his team it’s not “job done” heading into a make or break nine days for Saints.

There was a huge outpouring of emotion and some wild celebrations after Saints grabbed a vital win against Bournemouth at St Mary’s last time out.

However, they remain in the bottom three with three matches to go and still have much work to do with trips to Everton and Swansea followed by a final day St Mary's clash with Manchester City.

Hughes has been keen to emphasise that there is still much work to do.

He said: “I don’t think we’ll fall into the trap of thinking that we got job done last weekend because we haven’t. Nowhere near it.

“It was a moment in time where we felt that emotion. I think everyone in the stadium felt that emotion and there was an outpouring but I felt it wasn’t a bad thing.

“It brought everyone closer, it brought our fans closer to the team and maybe that distance had started to increase over the course of the season. Maybe that performance and result over the last few weeks brought everyone together.

“It was only right that we expressed ourselves as we did as that helped the crowd as well but we have to go again.

“For all the emotion that we saw and the fact we were able to at long last please our supporters we have to do it again and we don’t want to disappoint our fans by losing at Everton.”

Hughes was in philosophical mood when it came to the question of the scheduling of Saints’ games at such a crucial point in the campaign.

They have back-to-back away matches and a lot of travel, and the added disadvantage of being the late kick-off on Saturday evening.

“They make the point on the last day of the season that everyone has to play at the same time so maybe they should do that in the last two weeks of the season. Maybe that would be slightly more fair,” he reflected.

“The Premier League is paid a huge amount by TV and at some point you have to pay the price and the pound of flesh is kick-off times and times when you’d rather play at 3pm on a Saturday.

“I remember the time everybody played 3pm on a Saturday afternoon but it doesn’t happen anymore.

“It’s what the Premier League is and we accept sometimes it might not be as fair as it could be but you take the money you have to pay the price.”

Saints will try and help the team by flying to Swansea, an unusual move given it’s only about 170 miles from St Mary’s by road, but with the team in the air for the return Goodison Park trip Hughes hopes it will keep his men fresh.

“We approach it like we normally do,” he admitted. “Clearly travel with logistics of the best way to do that to make sure we’re not compromised anymore if we are compromised at all.

“We’re flying to Swansea. If we had a little bit more time and it wasn’t that we are travelling on a Bank Holiday we wouldn’t do that but we have changed our travel arrangements to ensure players are at their best.”