Toby Alderweireld knows all about playing for a team that defies the odds.

Last season, the defender helped Atletico Madrid claim a shock La Liga title and come within seconds of winning the Champions League.

Now, the Belgian international, who is on loan at Saints from the Spanish club, is helping his new side cause a stir of their own.

“That is why this is a very good win, because the expectations are rising,” he said, after Saturday’s 1-0 win over Stoke, which lifted Saints into second place in the Premier League.

“Everybody, especially at home, thinks we’re going to win maybe easily against a good opponent like Stoke City.

“It is very difficult to achieve that and that’s why we worked very hard.

“We played good in the first half and in the second half we worked very hard to get the three points. That makes me very satisfied.”

When he joined the club, though, did Alderweireld really expect Saints to be quite this impressive?

“Not as good as we are, of course, but I expected to come into a very good team who like to play football and get good results,” he said.

“Like now, we’re working very hard and doing good.”

Alderweireld’s signing on transfer deadline day was a major coup for Saints, with the 25-year-old’s services having been in high demand.

It was Ronald Koeman who helped persuade him that St Mary’s was the right place to continue his career, once he decided to move on from Atletico, where he played 16 times following his 2013 move from Ajax.

“I played games and I was happy there, but I wanted to play more for at least one season,” said Alderweireld.

“Then Southampton came, I talked to Ronald and he asked if I could play here and I said ‘Yeah, yeah, why not? No problem’.

“They brought a lot of footballers for the way we want to play and I like that.

“He [Koeman] looked at a lot of games in Spain and said ‘Yeah, you played one third of the games, so you can stay there and hope for your chance, or come here and show your qualities’.

“I really wanted to show my qualities and to play again a lot more and show that to the world.”

Saints possess an option to buy Alderweireld next summer and it is hard to imagine the club not wanting to make his centre-half partnership with Jose Fonte more permanent if they can.

“We talk a lot. Jose is experienced, I have experience and that helps us,” said Alderweireld, who is part of a defence that has kept five clean sheets in nine games and is currently the meanest in the Premier League.

“It is not just two, it is the defence, it is the midfield, it is the attackers – we defend very well as a team.

“All the credit is not to Jose or me, it is the whole team.”