ORIOL Romeu insists Saints will "try everything" and be pushing as hard as they can to secure a Europa League spot.

Ronald Koeman’s side kept up the chase with a 4-2 win at already relegated Aston Villa on Saturday and now have three games left to secure European football for a second successive campaign.

They made hard-work of it at Villa Park, with Ashley Westwood twice pulling Eric Black’s miserable bunch back to within a goal of Saints.

However, Dusan Tadic’s brace, Shane Long and Sadio Mane’s late goal meant Saints left Villa with the result they wanted, but possibly not the performance.

“It was very important three points, we really needed it,” said the Spanish defensive midfielder.

“It was a difficult atmosphere, it was not easy to play today, but the main thing is we took the three points and we are still fighting for those places that we want to get.”

With Liverpool drawing against relegation battlers Newcastle at Anfield, the 24-year-old former Chelsea man can see a small opportunity and is ready to keep his foot down on the home straight in case they can sneak in to Europe.

Jurgen Klopp's Reds are a point ahead with two games in hand.

“We’re two points closer to Liverpool,” he said. “They have two games less than us, but we still have three games, nine points to play for and we’ll try to get those nine points.

“We want to get there. We will try everything and we will push as hard as we can.”

The Villa game was quite bizarre, with the atmosphere deprived of any positivity – apart from the travelling Saints support.

Most of the game the Villa fans spent hurling abuse at their own team and lobbing paper aeroplanes from the stands.

In fact the only moments of joy that the Villa Park faithful shared was when one of their paper contraptions – made from protest posters stating “proud history, what future?” – landed on the pitch.

That would result in a huge – partly ironic – roar of joy.

It was an environment that Romeu felt was tricky to deal with.

“Maybe from the outside it’s easier but it’s not because it’s not something that you’re used to,” he said. “The fans were not with the home team.

“Instead of motivating yourself to change the situation and win the game it becomes difficult.

“It was weird, but we had to deal with that.

“I think in the end we were clever and we get those four goals which were important.”

He added: “I don’t want to make excuses, but it was quite different than the other games.

“It wasn’t quite as easy as a normal game but in the part they are already relegated maybe they didn’t fight that much as another teams would have done.

“What can we say, it was difficult but the main thing is we did it.”