James Ward-Prowse is hoping to round off a memorable season by helping Saints qualify for Europe and being named in the England under-21 squad for this summer’s European Championships.

The young midfielder has enjoyed a real breakthrough season at Saints, turning himself from an up and coming fringe player into an established first team regular.

Ward-Prowse is aiming to finish off the campaign in style by helping Saints into the Europa League in a vital last day match at Manchester City.

Before that he is hoping to be selected today by Gareth Southgate for the Young Lions squad for the Euros in the Czech Republic.

Ward-Prowse said: “I think Southgate has built a group that is built on team spirit and good camaraderie.

“We’ve got that. It is a real joy to play for England and go away with them.

“Everybody is excited to go and hopefully win the tournament.”

He added: “You can see the promising youngsters we’ve got coming through the youth set-up.

“We’ve had a good record all the way through recently of good tournament performances and good individual games.

“It makes this an exciting time for us.”

Ward-Prowse looks all but certain to be included by Southgate after an excellent season with Saints, in which he has made 29 appearances, and scored his first Premier League goal.

There is still one massive match remaining though, against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium with Saints able to finish fifth, sixth or seventh.

“We approach it full of confidence. It’s the last game of the season,” reflected Ward-Prowse.

“We obviously still need to make sure we perform well and win the game.

“As professionals, we will go out and prepare right and obviously go to win the game.

“We needed to bounce back (against Aston Villa) after the bad results that we’ve had and we knew we had to start the game well and give ourselves a chance.

“Luckily the front three were on fire and caused them all sorts of problems.”

Ward-Prowse’s efforts were warmly applauded by the Saints fans on the lap of appreciation after the Villa win at St Mary’s and he smiled: “It gives goose bumps to me especially, obviously the great season we've had and the support.

“You can see how much it means to them and us as players to give them that is great.”