YAN Valery has described his maiden Saints goal as ‘mad’.

The 20-year-old stunned Old Trafford into silence when he rifled his shot past David De Gea from 25-yards out.

Valery’s strike would be worthy to win any game but, unfortunately for Saints, Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku hit an 89th-minute winner to send Saints home with nothing.

“Charlie [Austin] and [Nathan] Redmond are always telling me to shoot and cross when I have the chance to. Sometimes it’s one-on-one, but sometimes I have to shoot,” explained Valery.

“I thought about it and just did it.

“I think the last time I did it was in training for the U23s which was a very long time ago.

“It’s mad and to do it at Old Trafford as well. I really hoped we would have had at least one point. It was good to score, but I would have preferred it if we won.”

Despite leaving Old Trafford empty handed, Saints arguably had their most complete performance since Ralph Hasenhuttl’s appointment in December.

And as the battle to avoid relegation nears its climax, Hasenhuttl should take plenty of positives from Saturday’s loss.

Valery, who has been shown a tremendous amount of faith from the Austrian, reckons their ‘fighting mentality’ will help keep Saints in the Premier League.

He added: “It’s very important. I think we showed that we have a fighting mentality until the end.

“We won’t give any team an easy game because we are fighting to get as many points as we can until the end of the season.

“We have to do it in every game until the end and I’m sure if we do it, then we will stay in the Premier League.

“The manager talked to us, and we are obviously disappointed, but he’s happy that we gave him everything.

“We showed we are fighters because we had the game on Wednesday against Fulham and then Arsenal before that, so we were tired.

“We gave everything and showed against a big Manchester United that we could have taken a point or all three.

“It’s good for the future and for the next games.”

Up next for Saints is Tottenham on Saturday and Valery thinks Spurs’ recent run of results won’t count for anything.

“It doesn’t matter that they are in a run of bad form because they are a still a really good team and we have to be focused. We need to show that we can fight against them as well to get at least a point,” added Valery.