Ronald Koeman believes his new Saints side look like a team that have been playing together for two years rather than two months.

There was a well publicised summer of upheaval at St Mary’s as players and managers came and went, but it has worked out well with Saints flying high under the guidance of Koeman.

The Saints manager paid tribute to the scouting and recruitment department of the club, who had already identified many of the players he wanted to bring in upon his arrival, and revealed he looked for certain types of footballers who would settle in quickly together.

He said: “Good quality players they understand each other very fast.

“I wasn’t thinking in the pre-season ‘we need six months to know each other.’ “It looks like this team has already been together for two seasons and that is depending on the players because they are good players.

“It’s important to be prepared when you are losing a player. You have to open the book and say ‘OK, this position we have number one this, number two, number three.’ “That’s the possibilities to have one of these players in that position and we had that about Mane.

“I knew Mane from last season because he played for Red Bull against Ajax in the Europa League.

“But Mane was on the list of Southampton – great scouting.”

The most eye-catching pair of new recruits have been Dusan Tadic and Graziano Pelle.

Koeman had already managed Pelle at Feyenoord and knew Tadic from his time in Holland.

“I didn’t have any doubts about the qualities of the players, only maybe about the level compared to Holland,” he admitted.

“You have to give them the chance to that challenge and they are doing fantastic.

“Tadic was already on the scouting list in Southampton.

“Of course, nobody better than me knew that kind of player in Holland.

“I think the best that we did is really watching in the position what we need in the season.

“Lallana left then OK we have to bring in a similar player like Lallana.

“Lambert to Liverpool and we have to bring a new targetman.

“Not just buying or spending money but really spending money in the positions we needed and that was the most important thing.”

He added: “Tadic is different.

“He’s more a wing player, he can play from both sides, he has a fantastic cross on his left and is always a player that had a lot of assists in scoring goals and strikers need those kind of players to score.”

There is a school of thought that Koeman benefitted from the upheaval in the summer, having been handed a rare opportunity to build his own squad from the start rather than inherit somebody else’s.

It’s something he largely agrees with.

“It’s not normal and it will not happen next summer,” he reasoned.

“Normally you have to change maximum one or two players but not six or seven players and that was very difficult and unusual at the start. They are normally more your team than if you start with somebody else’s players.”